Finishing what you start
by gabriel blessing
Summary: My first fic, from back in the 90's. Having replaced a dying human child a long time ago, the demon known as Ranma was always famous for finishing what he started...
1. Chapter 1

I got this idea from the fanfic Ranmazoku.

Ranma and Sailor moon belong to someone else. If you're important and

don't like this, let me know and I'll stop. If you're not important and

you don't like this, bugger off.

Finishing what you start.

Prelude

The heat breaks around me, and I find myself once more floating in the air above Jusendo. The warmth from the enormous fireball around me scorches the air making it difficult to breathe. Not for the first time since the beginning of all of this I wonder what the hell am I doing here? Then the battle is rejoined and I am left no more time to think. The desperate midair combat, while exhilarating, is quite possible the stupidest thing I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. Hovering in the air in front of me is Saffron. His wings beat methodically to maintain his altitude, while I rely on the updraft to stay air-born.

The phoenix flits around the open area throwing fireballs and I respond as best I can. I rely on precision and energy diversion to stay in the battle, while I keep the most of my energy and power in reserve, as I'm sure my opponent is. The energy Saffron is throwing at me is monstrous and more than enough to crush even the most powerful of humans. If he has that much energy to spare, than I was in trouble...

"RANMA!" a bellow interrupts my memories. I have the smallest fraction of a second in which to look up and begin a response of 'huh' when I come face to face with a fifty-pound bludgeon attached to a long pole attached to the girl who I have to live with. SLAM!

Ouch.

I resist the impulse to glare at Akane, and limit myself to rubbing my head as I tenuously ask, "What did you do that for!?"

"You idiot," she snapped peevishly at me, shifting that monstrosity that she calls a mallet in her grip as though to prepare for another strike. "You were ignoring me!" she bellowed. "Now. I asked you a question and I want an answer."

It seems I might be in trouble. Personally, I'm of the opinion that her excuse for striking me was pretty pathetic, but I'm of the opinion that people shouldn't try to kill me no matter what the reason. I rack my brain for anything to say that would spare me more strikes with that mallet. Nothing presents itself. I sigh internally and asked, "What was the question again?"

I'm treated to the sight of Akane turning a brilliant shade of purple, and triple her increase in malevolent energy. The air around her turns red, and I am almost certain that the chain-link I am walking on has begun to melt. I quickly hop off of it in order to avoid the now weak metal from dumping me into the canal beside us. This had the unfortunate side effect of placing me within easy striking distance.

After I recovered from the blow to the back of the head that launched me into the building across the street, Akane took the liberty of answering my question.

"I asked," she emphasized angrily, as though it were the most important question I have ever been asked in my miserable life, "where you've been going late at night." She became even angrier after asking, no doubt imagining me cavorting and performing wanton acts of carnality with my other fiancés. For all her talk of my perversion, it seems strange that she can't even go three thoughts about me without me being engaged in something sexual. I've always found it quite disturbing.

I keep these thoughts to myself, as they are completely un-Ranma like, and much more Ran like. I instead answer, "None of your business you uncute tomboy." The malevolent energy she is secreting triples beautifully, and I bask in it even as the strike of her mallet sends me flying. A win-win situation I think to myself wryly. I get dark energy, and I get to escape that fearsomely deviant personality. Life

is good. I relax, or try to relax as best I can while soaring through the air without any means of guiding or slowing my descent. I take these peaceful moments to reflect on how I got into this situation. I don't mean flying through the air. That was an unimportant side effect of my original situation.

It had seemed like such an honor. I, Ran, an unimportant peon in the grand army of darkness being summoned before my lord, He-Who-Remembers, for a mission of the utmost importance. That mission? To infiltrate the world of the light, and begin the destruction of the barriers that held He-Who-Remember's powers in check. I was chosen mainly because my power level was so low that I could easily slip through the holes in the barrier, like a minnow escaping from a tuna net. But there was another reason I had been chosen. An important reason. I always finish what I set out to do. I was famous for it, despite my miniscule power level. I was famous for it, and I was respected for it. No matter what the conditions, what the hardships, I always finish what I start.

I reach the apex of my flight as I remember these things, and how I arrived here. I remember how I disguised myself as a child who had died alone and frightened in a pit full of cats. I remember how during my travel across Japan, I would slip out late in the night, after the human who called himself my father was in a drunk stupor. How I would range across the cities, finding the miniscule points of power that I could handle, and undid the knots that made up the barrier. I remember how...

Uh-oh. I'm approaching the ground now. There is good news/bad news waiting for me. Good news, is that I'm aiming for a patch of green among a rocky section of some park in another part of Tokyo. The bad news is that there is somebody already there.

"Get out of the way!" I bellow as I begin the final stages of my descent. The four women who are currently occupying my landing pad startle and look up. They freeze as they get a good look at me, coming fast and hard. I swear under my breath. If I land on them they could get hurt. If they get hurt, suspicion will be cast upon me. If I'm under scrutiny, I might have trouble continuing my work. I have only one solution to these problems.

Even as the women began to move I'm stretching my shirt out with my arms. As I twist my body hard to the left the air catches my impromptu parachute, and I'm diverted enough to the side to avoid landing on the bystanders. And instead land right on a pile of sharp looking rocks.

CRUNCH-SMASH-SLAM-SCREEECH-THUNK

Ow.

I groggily shake my head and put a hand up to it, as the other one moves under my body and pushes me up off the ground. I began to check myself for injuries even as the four women who I nearly dive bombed began to sound there voices.

"Oh my god! What happened? Are you all right?" one of them shouts, a short girl wearing dark clothing with dark hair and pale skin. I decide not to answer that one, as she was trying to help, and sarcasm would likely offend her.

"Where the hell did she come from?" another asks, a taller blond dressed as a man. She probably pulled it off really well, but I have too much experience with cross dressers to fall for them that often. Another women with aqua hair stands beside the cross-dresser, and the aqua haired one merely shakes her head, her mouth slightly agape.

I remember there being another standing with the original four, but I can't see her from my present position, namely at the end of a six foot skid mark surrounding by shattered rocks. I push myself into a sitting position, while I continue my internal inspection of both my injuries, and my surrounding. The park itself is pretty undamaged, so it stands to reason that I'm not anywhere near Nerima. That's good, a chance to catch my breath before the crazies catch up. The dark haired girl has crossed the difference and now kneels beside me, eyes alight with worry. I look past her to where she and the others had been sitting. A large square piece of cloth lays spread out over the green, and a cliché little wicker basket sits on top of it. Several sandwiches and thermoses lay on the cloth.

"Sorry about ruining your picnic," I say in a tired little voice. Nothing seems broken, and I don't feel like I have a concussion, so I should be just find. The girl squatting next to me gapes at me after I speak.

"Forget the picnic!" she says anxiously. "Are you all right? Where did you come from? How come you came out of the air?" The questions start to flow out of her, as she looks me over for bones and blood. She seems like a nice girl, but I move to cut off her questions.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I tell her, brushing off her concern. I stand up from my slouch stiffly, rubbing my shoulders a bit. "This kind of thing happens all the time," I tell her as she looks at me. The other two women are almost gaping at me now. They must have never been to Nerima. That means they're going to ask questions. Oh boy.

"All the time?" a new voice queries. I look over my shoulder to the left and I see the fourth women who had disappeared. It was all I could do to keep it from being my turn to gape. The women was medium sized, a little shorter from the gender-bender blonde over there. She had amazing green hair and unusual red eyes. I thought for a moment they might be contacts, but upon further reflection I could see that they were naturally that color. Amazing.

"Yea," I say and put my hand behind my head to scratch nervously at my pig-tail. Time to give my trademark introduction. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this."


	2. Chapter 2

Finishing what you start.

Chapter one.

I don't own any of these Characters. They all belong to some rich

person with talent. I am lacking in both areas, so don't sue me, and

don't complain about the quality of this work

I hang above the clearing, carefully concealed so that not even my scent is revealed. I watch in bewilderment as the big man in the white clothes, bandana, and glasses picks up his squalling whelp one more time. I ponder the stupidity of these humans. Certainly he isn't going to throw the kid in that pit again. Not after what happened the last three times. Certainly not... My mistake. He just threw the kid in again. I almost feel pity for the youngling, but not really. The child can't take much more of this. If it dies...

Hey, wait a minute. If it dies...

It's a matter of child's play to disguise oneself as a human. Its not terribly difficult to make yourself look like a specific human either. If the kid dies, no one has to know that. Hmmmm. I begin to move, swiftly...

"Ranma?" a tenuous voice breaks my thoughts. I shake my head to dispel the old memories and turn with a smile to the young girl sitting next to me.

"Yes?" I ask politely, as I help myself to another sandwich. They offered to share, so that means its all open game.

"Ranma, are you telling the truth?" the girl asked again, with a little frown on her face. After I had introduced myself, the four had done me the same honor. The little girl with the dark clothing currently asking me a question is named Hotaru. The blonde cross-dresser had introduced herself as Haruka, while the aqua-haired chick hanging on Haruka's arm was called Michiru. The green-head with the eyes called herself Setsuna. They had, with what I consider a great showing of kindness, generously invited me to share of their food laden basket, and I, just as generously in my opinion, agreed to partake.

Truth be told, they had still looked a little numb after my rather flamboyant entrance. All except the green-head, who when it looked like I was about to be on my way, invited me to the meal apparently to keep me around so she could grill me into the ground with questions.

"Telling the truth about what?" I ask in a too innocent tone of voice. I had already repeated my story several times. After the initial shock had begun to wear off, the four had begun to eye me doubtfully. Correction. Two had eyed me doubtfully. The blonde had questioned me out right, and the green- head just looking at me without expression. She was pretty good at that. "The fact that I'm a super powered martial artist, the fact that there are dozens of super powered martial artists living in my prefecture, the fact that I'm magically cursed to change into a women with cold water, or the fact that I have three fiancés?"

"I think all of it is a crock of bull," Haruka generously added her two cents to the pot, and I generously ignored her.

"All of it," Hotaru asked innocently. "I mean, super powered martial artists? Magical curses?" She gave me a skeptical look. I shrugged under the weight of her gaze.

Setsuna spoke up again. "I hope you forgive us if we seem to be prying," she began, not looking at all repentant, "but you have to admit that the story you present is rather farfetched."

I sigh as I reach for another sandwich, and reminded myself that I have to convince them that what I tell them is the truth, or questions might be asked. I cannot afford an investigation into my actions this late into the game. I keep reminding myself that not everyone has had to lead a life as incredibly unusual, all things considered, that I have had to. I keep reminding myself that as long as they keep asking questions, they weren't noticing that I had eaten almost all of their sandwiches. I turn to Michiru.

"And how about you?" I ask her. "Do you believe any of my story? Please pass me a thermos, would you?" I add on the last part innocently.

She complied with my request as she answered. "I don't want to accuse a stranger of dishonesty, but your tale is so unusual." She trailed off with a sympathetically skeptical look, as I tested the thermos. Good, its just cold tea.

Now, don't get me wrong. Its not like I have a draw full of pink panties with little hearts on them, but I don't really have anything against being a girl. I mean, sure, at first it was a real kick in the teeth, but it's not all that unusual where I come from. Hell, it's pretty tame all things considered. The truth of the matter is that I like being able to turn into a woman. Well, female anyway. It opens a whole new side of life, from new clothes, to new places, to a new perspective on everything. It's not like I would write out a recommendation on aquatransexualism, but I'm not really complaining about it. And with that thought, I dumped the cold tea on my head, and went back to eating a sandwich. Besides, the expression on peoples faces when I do that is just to funny.

I take in the reaction of the peoples around me as I eat. I must admit to some amusement when Haruka's eyes glazed over and Michiru's jaw dropped. Hotaru, who had been leaning in so to give her skeptical look more power fell flat on her face. Setsuna raised a viridian eyebrow, cool as a cucumber. I could definitely come to appreciate a customer like that one. I finished the sandwich, and then took a sip of the dregs of the tea left in the thermos I held. As I tipped back my head to get the last of it, I couldn't help but notice the sun setting in front of me from around the thermos.

Was it really that late? Well, I better get going. Maybe I should stop by Ucchan's so I can honestly say I had been there when the people who dwell in the same house as I ask where I've been? Maybe. Doesn't hurt to get a little extra food either. With these thoughts I stand abruptly. I almost laugh out loud when Haruka's eyes follow the bounce of my breasts as I rise. Seeing as how her, Michiru, and Hotaru are still out for the count, I turn to Setsuna. She rises as I do, a good two inches or so taller than me in this gender.

"Look," I start in a tone fitting to that of the ill mannered country bumpkin I was disguised as, "it was great of you to let me have some sandwiches, but its getting late. Stop by Nerima sometimes and I'll show you all around. Just ask for me at the Tendo Dojo." I can almost imagine that. Another set of gorgeous women dropping by and asking for me by name. I wonder if I'll even be given a chance to explain before they all assume I'm engaged again. I extended my hand to Setsuna.

She looked at it for a second, and then excepted with all the grace of a princess. "It was a pleasure to meet you Ranma. I believe you said warm water changes you back? I think we might still have some warm tea," she offered politely.

I grin and shake my head. "Nah," I tell her, "I'll just go home and take a bath." I turn to leave, and the act seems to break the stupor that the other three had fallen into.

"Wait," one of them, I think Hotaru begins, but I don't stick around to hear what she was going to say. With a quick bound I'm twenty feet up and landing on a tree limb. With the natural grace of a squirrel I begin my trip home, bounding from one tree to another and an unbelievable pace, and I leave the four women whose picnic I had utterly annihilated behind.

That was kind of fun.

My reception back at the dojo was about what I expected. The moment I entered the door I found myself being propelled into the neighbors by a mallet accompanied by the shout of "Ranma, you idiot!" I peeled myself from the wall of the house across the street, and turned back to the door to be greeted by the sight of Akane glowing blue, even to the naked eye. To a creature with more refined senses, such as myself, she was releasing so much ill will that the walls around her were becoming psychically imbibed with malignant energy. Cool.

"Where have you been, Ranma?!" Akane shouted even as she began to charge me. I suppose I could answer 'having a picnic with four fabulously endowed women," but that might be the wrong thing to say. I began to dodge her assaults desperately, floating and twisting to avoid getting an indentation on my face. "I stopped by Ucchan's for some dinner," I tell her, and her glow actually increased. Wow.

Now, lets get something straight. First off, I want to make it clear that I'm not a psychic vampire. I am as far above some pathetic dark energy leech as humans are above monkeys. Having to rely on lesser creatures to restore ones energy is pathetic. My species has no need of draining energy, or drinking blood, or anything like that. Give us a length of time and we will recover our own energies at a rate that is directly proportional to our strength. But...Even though I don't need the energy, damn, is it tasty.

Akane and I continue our discussion in a similar vein, ending with me getting slammed into the koi pond, and her stomping off, leaving behind her a trail of dark energy, writhing and snapping in a serpentine frenzy. I stand up and strip off my shirt, wringing it out as I enter the house. Almost immediately I am attacked again.

"Son," Genma bellows, looming up in front of me with Soun beside him. "How dare you treat your fiancé in such a manner? What kind of man would treat an innocent little girl in such a fashion? I should beat some..." My father trailed off suddenly when he realized that I was a girl, and currently shirtless. Soun is ogling me as I walk by without slowing.

"Uncute tomboy, stupid old man," I mutter, making sure to stay in character as I entered the kitchen. I see Kasumi by the stove and I call to her, "Hey, Kasumi. Do we have any hot water?" Here's where the fire works start.

Kasumi turns and sees me as I begin to pull on my shirt. Foom! Instantly I feel the raw lust blazing from her body like a supernova. Her face remains in a cheerful and pleasant smile, even as she says, "Why yes Ranma. I have some on the stove right now."

"Thanks Kasumi," I say innocently. I just love hanging around Kasumi. Its amazing that despite her intense emotional response to almost everything about me, she manages to hold onto that passively friendly mask of cheerfulness. As I pour the water over my head, the lust she's emitting nearly doubles, and I casually toss out, "Yeah, sorry about the mess, but Akane hit me into the pond again."

"She shouldn't be so violent," Kasumi says disapprovingly. Instantly the lust changes into a vicious hatred so intense it makes Akane's earlier emotions seem bland. I can almost feel the air around her turn black.

"Yea. Thanks for the water Kasumi," I tell her as I hand back the kettle. She turns to fill it as I turn to leave. "I think I'll go take a shower and turn in," even without looking I can feel the return of the lust. Damn. If I could only find a way for the engagement to be transferred over to Kasumi...

I trudge up the stairs intent on my upcoming bath when the final occupant of the house confronts me. Nabiki. The way she eyes me reminds me of a cat about to devour something. Believe me, I know that expression. She speaks up. "So, Ranma," she drawls from where she's leaning against the wall. "You ready to tell me where you've been going at night?"

Truth be told, I had been wondering how Akane knew I had been going out. I usually leave after the rest of the house was asleep and I always come back as quick as possible in case someone tries to challenge me when I'm gone. I had managed to do this fairly often without anyone knowing, but than I got careless. I left after everyone else in the house was asleep, but I forgot to check to see if everyone was in the house. I was getting home at right about two in the morning when I ran square into Nabiki. Literally. After I helped her up she had demanded to know where I had been. When I refused to answer she had the audacity to attempt to coerce me into telling, threatening to let every one know that I had been out late. Like she hadn't been sneaking in at just the same moment I had. Someday I'm going to do something to that girl to put her in her place.

"Nope," I tell her, and brush past her into the bathroom. I put up the 'occupied' sign and go to work cleaning myself off.

After I had washed and rinsed, while I was resting in the actual tub, I let my thoughts range around as they will. For nearly a decade straight I had wondered this world with Genma. Genma had trained me and raised me, all the while thinking that I am his son. He never even suspected that I was actually a scout and espionage agent for an army of demonic and evil entities preparing to invade this plain of existence.

Scattered throughout the world is the making of the barrier. The barrier is an enormously complex and interwoven net of magic that keeps the plain I come from and this plain from intermingling. It was designed eons ago to keep us out, to keep us trapped. But it has been weakening. For the past two millennium the lord of our world, He-Who-Remembers, has been doing what he can to weave away at the barrier from our side. But it hadn't been enough. And so me and a few others, I don't know who or how many, were selected to aid him. We were squeezed through what holes He-Who-Remembers had managed to erode, and set upon our task. We couldn't do much. After all, the barrier was specifically designed to keep out my kind. But I was able to do something. It was hard at first, to find intersecting points of power that made up the barrier. It was even harder at first to undue them, but with practice it became easier. It is only a matter of time now. I can almost see the barrier snap, I can almost see He-Who-Remembers glorious return, I can almost see Akane naked, I can almost...

Wait a second. Akane naked? What?

I snap out of my reverie to be treated to the sight of a naked Akane standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Behind her I can see a smirking Nabiki holding up the occupied sign I had hung up. As Akane reaches for her mallet, I decide that I'm not just going to put Nabiki in her place. I was just flat out going to kill her

I open my eyes into the stillness of the night. I lay there, unblinking as I extend my senses to envelop the house around me. Behind me, Genma lays snoring. Two rooms over I can smell the sake on Soun's breath. I can barely discern Akane mumbling something in her sleep. On the floor beneath me I can hear Kasumi in a deep slumber. The only one not asleep is Nabiki. She is waiting in her own room, no doubt trying to catch me as I leave. For a second I consider waiting, staying in tonight, giving her time to lose interest, but I can't do that now. Not when the time is so close. I rise into a low crouch , take a second to scent the air, and then I move.

Something I have discovered over time, is that when I am in human shape, I have a humans strength. When I first began my trip here, this was disturbing. But as time went by, my human form began to become faster and stronger. Now, with my abnormally fast and strong human body, I move quickly and soundlessly to the window, open it and dart out. Before I even hit the ground I am in position, and when I touch I move. I hear Nabiki moving too, and then I begin the course I had decided upon earlier this evening.

Nabiki thinks that I am very stupid for some reason. I think she subconsciously insists that anyone as physically powerful as I am can't be intelligent, so that people like her have a chance to survive. Some kind of balance of nature. That's rubbish. Nabiki knows that I know that she knows that I've been going out, and so she assumes that when I leave tonight, I will no doubt head in the wrong direction in an attempt to shake off pursuit. So instead I move in as straight a line as I possibly can towards my destination tonight. After my flight this morning on the way home I detected several as of yet unmolested points on the barrier. They lay in the prefecture that I landed in earlier. In Juuban.

After I had been running at extreme speeds for almost five minutes, I stop and begin the second part of my plan to evade Nabiki and whatever tail she might have on me. I duck into a dried out drainage canal that was passing beneath a street. There, I proceeded to remove all of my clothing. I have underestimated Nabiki before, and I wouldn't put it past her to plant some kind of tracking device on my clothes. After I had finished stripping I finished off my disguise by removing my disguise.

I feel my bones shift and my skin stretch. My muscles expand and my features change. Within seconds I am in my original form. I crouch in shadows for a moment, and then move on from where I had been hidden. My clothes lay in a brief case hidden in the dried up canal bed.

Now that I am in my original form, I move even faster. Any who see me as I pass, see nothing but the faintest hint of black, a shadow moving across the street or the wall. I am undetectable, I am silent, I am...

BOOM!

...falling on my face. Ouch. What the hell was that? I whip my head

around wildly, trying to find the source of the explosion. Behind me, several streets down, a fireball rips the air. That would be a likely source. I decide that perhaps it would be better if I see what that is before I finish off the barrier points.

Authors notes.

Wow. I've never actually written an Authors notes. I feel like a

professional. For anyone who hasn't figured it out, this is a sailor

moon and Ranma crossover. While the first chapter introduces the basic

premise of this story, the next chapters will start with the plot.

Authors author's note. Here it is, in all its glory. Expect this to be released quickly, as it is an old copy, unrevised. I like the idea of placing it out there as it originally was. Kind of a tribute to the evolution of my writing.


	3. Chapter 3

Finishing what you start.

Chapter 2.

Disclaimer. I don't own them. So what?

I haven't been this excited since my claws grew in. I read the summons, a psychically endowed rock with the imprinted time and place, again. It was real. An honest summons to the Lord, He-Who-Remembers. Me, a lowly creature of the third phile, to serve the Lord. I almost preen as I enter the palace. The guards, members of the second phile, had tried to stop me, but when presented with the rock, they had no choice but to move aside. It's a sweet feeling. As I continue my trip through the corridors, nobles and lords see me and sniff. Let them sniff. Hah. Worthless buggers. They weren't summoned to the Lord. They don't get to...

Another explosion has the opportunity to remind me that while these memories are sweet, now is not the time to be visiting memory lane. Now is the time to be very careful. I creep, quickly but quietly, up the side of the final building between me and the action. When I gain the roof I peer over the edge, masking my presence with every fiber of my skills. That's a lot of masking. I study the seen before me, and then I groan, completely spoiling my hiding effect.

Them. Boots, bows, and skirts. In a variety of pastels. Oh bleeding lords of piss. The Sailor Scouts. I mentally bash myself upside the head. I knew there was a reason why I didn't come into Juuben often. There are only five of them: blue, yellow, green, red, and multi. I think the multi one was Moon, but the other ones escape me. The five are putting on a prismatic light show for...

Shit!

I began moving the instant I recognize what the scouts are fighting. Its big, dark, and scaly. It's a member of the second phile. A member of my species. I have no choice but to help, and I do so even as the meaning of this event begins to penetrate. Others of my race are beginning to arrive.

The scouts have no colorful attack, no speech, and no warning before I am on them. I back hand the blue one as I pass, my other hand in a fist burying itself into the stomach of the green. I make certain not to use my claws. I want to avoid injuries if at all possible. If I wound any of them, but fail to kill them all, then they will be certain to hunt me down. And I'm not even going to attempt to kill them unless they're all present, unsuspecting, and I have a really big projectile weapon.

As the other three begin to turn, the shouts of pain from the two I have already dealt with alerting them, I begin my own message to my kindred. Its not so much speech, the scouts my be able to recognize the message if I used a spoken language. Its more of a set of sounds combined with my aural admissions. Flee. Meet me at the park, by the lake, tomorrow, at this time. Recover.

That's kind of inaccurate. I didn't actually say park, more 'trees surrounded by city', and lake was more like 'midsize water', but the message seems to get through. The scaled thing turns tail and begins to flee immediately, as I continue through the scouts like a bowling bowl through pins. The yellow one begins to shout and glow, while the red one jumps away from me. I crouch low in my run and sweep the feet of the yellow one out from underneath her, and then straighten myself out and jump into the air, to land on Moon's head, before continuing on past them, up onto a building and then as fast as I can into the night.

I don't want to fight them yet.

I jump from roof to roof, a shadow against the moon, moving in a random pattern in order to assure that I had escaped from any attempts at pursuit. What a night. I think it really would be better off if I just go home tonight.

A creak is my early warning. My eyes are instantly opened into slits and I extend my perception to the doorway to my room. A figure, woman, holding a large metallic object filled with water. It could only be one thing. I groan in my head and prepare myself for an early bath.

"Ranma, you idiot, wake up!" Akane screeches as she propels the liquid at me. I hold my breath as the cold water hits, and sit up, making groggy noises.

"Huh? Wha?" I sputter in a superb imitation of someone who had just woken up.

Akane continues on, her voice shrill and annoying enough to break glass. "Its time to wake up you dolt. Do you want to be late?" She turns around and begins to stomp off when I respond.

"Umm, Akane," I say, "-its Saturday. We don't have school today." I have the pleasure of seeing her freeze, and she begins to admit a decidedly embarrassed aura. She quickly masks it with anger.

"Nabiki!" she yells. I should have known. I crawl across the floor of the room I share with Genma to my dresser. Nabiki enters as I pull out a change of clothes.

"Well," she smirks. "Are you ready to talk?" Bah. Stupid woman. I ignore her as I brush past to take a relaxing bath. My mind is far away. That other. What could he have been doing here? Have my years of effort finally paid off? Is the invasion eminent? I hope so. I really need to get away from all of these fools. A lesser creature would have killed them and ran off, but I always finish what I start. I started this, and now I'm not going to leave until I finish it.

I enter the front chamber of the bath room. There, I disrobe, tossing the soggy clothes into the hamper, placing my dry clothes aside. As I had shut the door, I had noticed Nabiki smirking. What could that mean? I take a quick inventory of my surrounding. Lets see, extra clothes in the hamper, occupied sign missing, humming noise coming from the bath. I quickly take a mental check to see who it would be. Akane was downstairs, the old men are still asleep, Nabiki lurking by the door of the bath. Must be Kasumi. Oh well. At least she won't hit me, and to be quite frank, I'm too concerned about the ramifications of last nights events to care. I slide open the door of the bath.

"Hey Kasumi. Want to wash my back?"

An hour later, after a relaxing soak and a pleasant conversation with Kasumi, who was producing an insane amount of lust vibes, I head downstairs for some breakfast. I notice the look Nabiki is giving me (suspiciously puzzled, no doubt by my actions at the bathroom), but I pretend to ignore her. I help myself to some cold miso soup in the fridge, made by Kasumi a few days earlier, when I have a sudden

premonition. I shudder briefly as I slurp. Something climactic was about to happen.

Knock. Knock. Knock

Even as I turn towards the door I hear Akane get up from where she was in the living room and move to answer it. Even as I enter the hallway that leads to the door I see Akane opening the door.

"Hello," Setsuna said, with Hotaru standing next to her. "We're looking for Ranma. Is he in?"

Heh. I never thought they would take me up on my offer. Well, put your best foot forward. I wave to them from behind Akane as she begins to glow.

"Hey girls," I get out before I'm propelled into the stratosphere by a mallet and a shout of 'Idiot'. If they didn't believe my explanation before, they will now. That's for certain. I hope those two manage to stay alive until I hit the ground.

Two minutes later, and a splash that killed three gold fish, I'm back in the house, watching Akane act as though she didn't just try to kill me.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you," she says with a vacant smile. "I thought you might be some more of that idiot's fiancés," she says, not even having the decency to call me by name. Setsuna's face remains

expressionless, but I can see Hotaru's disapproval. She obviously didn't agree with the treatment I had received, and I decided that I rather like the little girl. Setsuna answered.

"So I gathered," she said dryly. I can't read her expression, but despite all of her self control, I can make out her disapproval too. "We're just here because Ranma offered to show us around Nerima."

"Oh, don't worry. I can show you around," Akane brightly offers. "I know just as much as that idiot knows. He'll probably just take you to that bimbo, Shampoo." I bristle slowly. I really don't like Akane trying to take them up on my offer. I started this, and I sure as hell don't want her interference. Luckily, Setsuna seems to agree.

"No thank you," she smoothly interjects. "I'm sure you have other things to do, and I wouldn't want to interfere with your day." I can see Akane starting to insist, so I move to cut her off.

"Well then," I say cheerfully, springing to my feet. "Times a wasting. Why don't you two just head out and I'll be out right after I get some hot water." Setsuna also rises, with Hotaru shooting Akane dark looks as she gets up.

"Very well," Setsuna agrees and turns to leave. Akane glares at me, but I pretend to ignore her as I jog off to the kitchen. Kasumi was still upstairs in the bathroom, recovering from the sexual frustration of having me naked and within her grips and her unable to do anything, so I help myself to the water and let myself out.

The two are wait for me. Hotaru is glowering at the house, while Setsuna just waits patiently. As I join them Hotaru snaps.

"I can't believe her! You could have got hurt, Ranma! Are you okay?" she asks, looking me over. I wave off her attention with the casual air of long practice.

"Right as rain," I cheerfully quip. "So you two decided to come and visit? I didn't really think you would. Where are the other two. Haruka and Michiru?" I look around the street as though they might be hiding.

"Oh, papa Haruka had a race to attend, and mama Michiru had a concert to practice for," Hotaru chirped cheerfully, her displeasure already forgotten. What a cheerful girl. She must have a lot of friends. Setsuna smoothly cut in.

"You offered to show us around, and while Michiru and Haruka were busy, Hotaru and I decided to take you up on the offer."

I grin at her impishly. "Well, now do you believe how I ended up crashing your picnic?" I am vaguely proud of the fact that I actually managed to make Setsuna crack a small smile at that remark. I began to walk, the other two following. They hadn't asked to be shown anywhere in particular, so I decide a general tour would do. The Cat Café, Ucchan's, Furinken, maybe a couple of other places. I head off towards the Cat Café.

"I can't believe she actually hit you!" Hotaru said, her mouth making a cute little moue. "How can anyone be that mean?"

I shrug. "You get used to it after a while. The path of the martial artist is fraught with peril, yadda yadda yadda," I flippantly put out. Setsuna gives me a sideways glance.

"Why do you put up with it?" she asks me in quiet tone. I look at her once before answering.

"What could I do? If I tell her to stop, she'll just hit harder. Actually, she's not as bad as her sister, Nabiki," I add. "Akane only hits me physically. Nabiki is more subtle, but a lot more vicious."

"Why don't you just leave," Setsuna asks. Hotaru looks at me with that one. Oh boy.

Why don't I just leave? A question I have asked myself a couple of times, but this is the first time anyone else has. I guess I should

think before answering.

After a couple minutes of remaining silent and looking introspective I answer. "Because it would be dishonorable."

"Dishonorable?" Setsuna asks. "Why would it be dishonorable?"

"Because my pops and Mr. Soun made an agreement that the two schools should be joined. Since I'm the heir of my side, I have to marry one of them. Neither of the other two would except, so I end up with Akane."

"But what about your other fiancés? I can't remember what you said about them," Hotaru questions, "But why don't you just marry one of them?"

"Because then the contract with the Tendos would be broken, and my honor lost," I tell her. Setsuna is looking at me intently, Hotaru questioningly.

"Is honor really that important?" Setsuna asks. I look at her sharply, a little too sharply actually. I can see it's a serious question. I guess it deserves a serious answer. How to phrase it.

After another two minutes of silence, I speak, in a very serious tone of voice. "There have been times," I begin. "There have been times when I have been without clothes, food, friends, or hope. Throughout it all, I have had my honor. If I were to lose my honor..." I trail off for a moment. "If I were to lose my honor, then I would really have nothing." Silence is their only response. We walk on.

"Alright," I say in a pathetic attempt at cheerfulness. "So far we've seen Ucchan's, the Cat Café, Furinkin, Dr. Tofu's, and Ryouga." I'm limping, I have bruises all over the left half of my face, I'm a girl, and I'm still stiff from the paralysis powder. Pretty tame day all said.

Hotaru has long ago given up even attempting to close her mouth from its perpetual gape. Setsuna was struggling valiantly with the effort of remaining cool and aloof, but I could see her beginning to fall into numbers of the perpetually shell-shocked. I don't really blame them. Ucchan's had been an okay stop with Konatsu being really nice and Ukyou really understanding, but after that attack by Mousse and the glomp by Shampoo, followed by the encounter with the Kunos at Furinken, that final assault by Ryouga that left me a women, and Tofu's impromptu lesson in ball room dancing (aided by Kasumi and Betty) Hotaru must be almost numb from all those face faults and Setsuna had what looks like a nervous tick by her left eye.

"I must say, Ranma," Setsuna begins. "I had been convinced that you were exaggerating in the park. But now..." she trails off. I shrug. Behind us the sun was starting to set. The incipient night reminded me that I had an appointment to keep, and I couldn't do it with these two standing around.

"Don't worry about it," I tell her. "Look, I don't want to seem like an rude host, but its getting late. Do you two need a lift home?" Setsuna seems to shake herself and glances at her wristwatch. She seems startled by the time.

"Indeed, it is late. Do you know when the next bus will be coming in?"

I grin at her. "It's in a couple of hours, but I could give you two a lift if you want one."

Setsuna raised an eyebrow. "You don't look old enough to drive," she states skeptically. Hotaru was still too stunned by the days events to speak.

I take a moment to stretch away the last vestiges of the paralysis powder. Those two look pretty light, and I want to do something nice for them...

"Of course I can't drive. I was offering you a lift, not a ride," I grin at Setsuna's uncomprehending look and continue. "After all, what trip to Nerima is complete without a guided tour to the roofs?"

Using my vastly superior speed to forestall argument, I pick Setsuna up and sit her on my shoulders with one hand, and give Hotaru the same treatment with my other. Leaving my arms up to support their waists I leap.

I hear Setsuna's startled inhalation and the jump seems to have woken up Hotaru. She gives a startled squeak, even as I alight on the roof and begin to run.

"Use your legs against my chest to keep your balance," I instruct as I hop from one roof to another. "Put your hands on my head to help. And relax," I tell them as though being carried on someone's shoulder at close to twenty-five miles an hour over the roofs of the city was normal. "I do this all the time."

Two roofs later I feel Hotaru loosen up, and I grin when I actually hear her start to laugh. Setsuna begins to loose her rigidness a little after that.

"I wouldn't mind this nearly so much," she tells me in a tight voice, "If I wasn't wearing a skirt."

"Don't worry," I tell her, breathing easily. "You'd be surprised at howlittle people look up these days in a city." I have to make sure to pace myself. The two might be light, but Juuban is a fair distance away, and it just wouldn't do to get tired on something as routine as this. The trip continues in much the same vein. Me making idle conversation with Setsuna while Hotaru gleefully points out land marks from out elevated position.

"So was today pretty typical?" Setsuna asks me.

"Yup. Sometimes a day or two will go by when I won't run into a specific person, but that usually means they're training to beat me or something. You were actually pretty lucky."

"Why's that?"

I smirk to myself. "You managed to come at a day when Happosai wasn't in.

Hotaru throws herself at me and gives me a warm hug. "Thanks for the ride Ranma," she laughs happily. Then she seems to realize that she's hugging me, and blushes while she darts into her house. Oh boy, I think she has a crush on me. Setsuna offers me a much more sedate farewell.

"Thank you for an interesting day," she tells me as she offers me her hand. I grin like an eighteen year old kid, (what a coincidence) and take her hand.

"Nah, the pleasure was all mine," I laugh as I scratch behind my head with my other hand. Once more, I'm treated with one of Setsuna small smiles. I could really grow to like those.

"While I don't think that you deserve any of the treatment you receive," she says, her face suddenly rather serious, "I respect your dedication to your duty. If you ever need some help with it, please ask. I won't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do." She turns and gracefully enters the apartment she shares with Hotaru and the other two ladies.

I stand staring after her for a minute. There was something about the way she had said the word 'duty'. Something...

I crack a grin. I could definitely get used to having her around. Maybe I'll keep her as a slave after we invade and conquer. I start to whistle, and walk away with my hands in my pockets. Full dark has set in by now, but I still have some time before I need to make my appointment. Why not enjoy the night?

I stare at Saffron's broken body, jaw agape, unable to comprehend what had just happened. I won? How could I have one? It should be impossible. Saffron was a god, I'm a lowly third phile. I was chosen because I was so weak. The battle should have been pathetically one sided. Well, the battle had been pathetically one sided, but it should have been me that was the one broken. Not that I'm complaining or anything. What could this mean? Was Saffron nothing more than a faker, a lowly demon merely aspiring to divinity? Even as this thought crosses my head, Saffron's body goes up in ashes, like a phoenix. A pathetic mewling noise sounds from amid the blaze, and a second later the fire and Saffron are both gone. A crying babe lies where the two had been a moment before. No, Saffron had been a god. A fairly powerful one if he had been able to almost instantly rebirth himself. The implication of this strikes me like a blow. I just killed a god. How powerful have I become?...

A churning noise to my right shakes me out of my reverie. It is now very late into the night. I am slouched against a tree, hidden in shadows with the lake to my right. I haven't moved in almost two hours while I was waiting. A quick glance to my right tells me what the churning was.

The lake is a pool of boiling diamonds, as the moon reflects off of its bubbling surface. From the depths of the lake, the scaled thing fromthe second phile, a Second, rises from the depths where it had laid covered in mud. I have to admit, it was a good place to hide with its coloring and the texture of its skin. The second philer looks around, and quickly detects the 'here I am' aura I'm admitting. The moon outlines its sneer when it catches its first good look at me. I conceal a scowl.

The reason behind its dislike of me is very simple. I'm from the third phile, he's from the second. It's kind of like a social caste system. At the top of the ladder is He-Who-Remembers. Kind of a like a personified god. After the Lord is the first phile. They are, for the most part, fairly powerful, minor lords and ladies and whatevers. Important, but not as important as the Lord. Below that are the second philers. They function as commanders and guards, elite soldiers. And below them, our the third philers. Peons and cannon fodder. When the barrier drops, the third philers will be the first ones through, to absorb the brunt of the humans' weaponry. The biggest problem I have with this is the fact that the third philers are treated like dirt. The reason we are considered third philters, the reason that we're at the bottom of the rung was because of a weird aural anomaly. While most aura's have a kind of descending counter clock wise spiral, human, creature, or demon, third philers have a descending clock wise spiral. Because of this we're considered weaker and dirtier than the others, and scorned accordingly. Its kind of like assuming someone is inferior because of the color of their skin or the slant of their eyes. Humans do that a lot.

"Third," it snaps arrogantly. "What are you doing here?" It looks me up and down, and I stop myself from straightening into a threatening stance.

"My name is Ran," I instead answer. "I am one of the original agents that our," I emphasized the word, "Lord sent to begin the unraveling of the barrier."

The second sneered at me, well sneered as best something with no lips can. "Well, now you don't have to worry," it tells me. "Seconds are taking over that task. My Lord has finally worn enough of it away so that the Seconds can take care of the job, and lead the invasion." That condescending snot. He wouldn't admit that the Thirds are just as responsible for the weakening of the barrier. He wouldn't admit if tortured. "Your task is done, Third."

I feel a warm feeling run through me. A finish to what I started. Finally I could leave those annoying humans behind.

The Second continues. "Now you can return to the rest of your kind."

I have no warning. The only thing that saves me are the years of unexpected attacks on me by dozens of super powered martial artists. I throw myself away from the tree even as the explosion showers me with splinters. I roll and come up in a ready position, hunched forward so that one hand was on the ground, both my feet spread far apart for stability.

"What in the name of the Lord are you doing?!" I snap at him. The Second merely gives me a disgusted look.

"It's simple, Third. I'm sending you to visit the rest of your kind. You weren't here when we had the cleansing." I go cold.

"The cleansing?" I ask, already afraid of what the Second was going to say.

"The cleansing. The glorious hunt that rid the multiverse of you and the rest of your pathetically deviant race." The Second attacked physically. Despite the growing cold in the pit of my stomach, I easily fend off its attacks.

"You lie," I snap. The Second is still arrogantly confident of its superiority, ignoring the fact that I'm matching its best attacks like they weren't even there.

"It was a beautiful thing," he tells me, "-when the final Third fell, obliterated by the Lord himself. The celebration lasted a week."

I have to get away from here. The scouts could show up at any second, and I don't want to explain why I'm speaking with this creature. Shrugging aside one of the Seconds feeble assaults, I tightened my fingers flat, and thrust them at Imperial Roasting Chestnuts speed into the unsuspecting creatures chest. I close my fist around the slimy mass that would more or less be the creatures equivalent of a heart. One quick tear and the startled creature is lying on the ground, its energy leaking out of the hole in its chest. It probably never even felt the strike.

All I can feel is coldness. All of the Thirds. My people. My race. My friends. My family. Dead. The last one obliterated by my Lord himself. I tilt back my head an d roar, a hideous tearing noise that shouldn't be able to come out of a human throat. With that, and a coldness penetrating into my very soul, I flee into the night. I flee from the body and what it represents. I flee.


	4. Chapter 4

Finishing what you start

Chapter 3

These people, from a to z,

have no relation to me.

And so you see,

that's the way it's gotta be.

This poetry was brought to you by the great book of disclaimers. Now on

with the show.

Authors new note: This is not one of my best pieces, but it was necessary for the development. It makes use of several clichés, but at least at the time of the writing, they were minor clichés. My favorite part is at the beginning, with the demon Ran coming to grips with his loss and deciding on the course of action.

Vengeance.

Also, there were several minor corrections I made here, and in all my recently re-released. Mostly grammar oriented like repeated infinitives and such, and also minor misspellings. Beyond that, it is still rather raw. Enjoy.

---

Dead.

They're all dead.

I run through the night, unheeding of where I'm going.

My friends.

I smash through a wooden fence like its not even there. I clear the house it surrounds with one leap. I'm on the other side and moving even as the first light goes on.

All dead.

I run and run and run. I push myself faster and harder. I'm not trying to get anywhere, I'm just trying to outrunthe meaning of those words.

I'm all alone.

I stop, and collapse shuddering on the wall of a store. That coldness in my stomach, a tightening of my muscles fills me. All of them destroyed for no other reason than that they were different. I finally surrender and let the full implication of what this means hit me.

I'm all alone. All the help I've been expecting, my glorious return to my people, my hope, it all has been shattered. If I were to show my face around them, I would be killed mercilessly. I have no chance of going back. Worse than that, they were about to invade this world as well. If they catch me here I will be just as dead as if they were to catch me there.

Logically, I have no other option but to resist them. To fight off their invasion. It would be next to impossible, but if I prevent them from undoing more barrier points, I can forestall the invasion. I will of course have to kill any of them that cross over here. Can't let news get back, or let them return to warn the others.

Logically of course. My emotions are playing no part in this. It is all cold logic.

My fist lashes out, bearing with it a good portion of my anger and hatred as enhanced chi. The store I'm leaning against is utterly annihilated from the assault. The dark red and black streaked ball of energy flies through the air, decimating a good portion of road when it bounces, and than impacts another shopping complex. The fireworks are impressive.

I straighten my posture. I'll have to kill them all. It's the only logical thing to do. But I'll need help. I began to walk away from the scene of devastation that I had just created, the cold in my stomach un-depleted. I can't rely on the other members of Nerima. They're just as likely to turn on me as the Seconds or the Firsts, and for the most part they don't have that killer instinct. I had to find allies that were cold blooded enough to kill the demons without mercy, someone I can rely on not to hesitate if they're offered the chance to commit genocide on an entire species of demonic creatures. I need the Sailor Scouts. Even as the wails of sirens becomes strong enough to reach my ears, I set my mind on how to best set about destroying the remnants of my 'kin'.

---

"Ranma you idiot!" Akane bellowed as she charged me. Its noon now. I had spent the entire night walking back to Nerima from Juuban at a normal pace.

The thing was, I had only allowed her to hit me before so I wouldn't seem out of character. I had to remain in character because I needed these idiots to provide me some sort of cover. I don't need that cover any more. I stopped her mallet with one hand. Akane's anger faltered as she stared at my the head of her bludgeon caught securely in my grip.

"Akane," I say in a kind tone of voice totally at ends with the cold in me, "could you go to the dining room and wait for me. I need to gather everyone together. I have an announcement." I release the weapon and she puts it away without even realizing it as I walk in a measured pace past her. I stop by the porch to the back yard when I see Genma and Soun sitting there, cheating each other blind at chess. I repeat my message to them as well.

As I begin to walk up the stairs, I run into Nabiki. She looks furious, her hands on her hips and a glare that would make Akane proud. "Ranma. Where were you last night. You better answer me this time, or I will make your life a living hell." She drew herself up, using the stairs to give her a height advantage over me.

"Alright," I tell her amiably. "I was going to tell everyone in the dining room. Just let me get everyone there first." I turn and leave her. Nabiki is about to snap at me, when my words penetrate. Her glare turns into a gape.

I find Kasumi in the kitchen. With the same measured pace I cross the distance to the counter and hand her the knife she was reaching for. She notices me with a start.

"Why hello Ranma," she cocks her head to the side and smiles. The desire in her aura actually reaches out to wrap me in her lust. I ignore it and return her smile.

"Kasumi, do you have Nodoka's phone number?" I begin to chop up some vegetables she had set aside for the soup she was preparing.

"Why yes, Ranma," she says happily, her eagerness to do anything for me tingeing her aura. Under better circumstances... She continues, "Would you like me to get it for you?" I nod and she moves across the kitchen, out of my line of sight I continue to prepare lunch. When she returns she has a slip of paper with the number and the phone.

I thank her. "Kasumi, would you please go to the dining room and tell the others that I'll tell them my message just as soon as Nodoka is here?" She looks like she is about to protest, but I cut her of. "I'll take care of lunch. You just relax all right?" I brush her out of the kitchen and turn my attention to the phone. I dial the number and balance the phone on my shoulder as I continue my work with the soup. Two rings later someone answered.

"Hello?" Nodoka's voice answers.

"Yes, mother?" I say, "This is Ranma." She starts to say something, but I cut her off as well. "I have a very important announcement to make. Could you please come to the Tendo Dojo? As quickly as possible?"

I hear her hesitate as though sensing the seriousness of my tone. "Very well, son," she finally says. "If its important."

"Thank you," I tell her, and then hang up without another word. I call up another number, and talk for a moment with the person who answered. I hang up in a minute, and place the phone aside. The soup is almost finished, so I add the final ingredient. A very special ingredient. With that I settle down to wait.

I had long ago came up with a way to get out of all the engagements. It was really simple actually. The only problem, is that it involved doing an act that 'Ranma Saotome' would never do. Now that I had no reason to be among these people, now that I was actually trying to escape all of the whackos, it is the ideal solution.

A knock at the door awakens me from my reverie. I move to answer it. At the door is a very worried looking Nodoka. I cut her off before she has a chance to speak. "Please, wait in the dining room. I want to tell you all at the same time." She bites her lips and moves to comply. I return to the kitchen to acquire a stack of bowls, chopsticks, and the soup, and move to the dining room.

---

The fire in front of me crackles as I prod it with a stick. Lying in the embers on one side is a pot, bubbling with the rice I have cooking in it. Behind me is my pack. Around me, is Juuban park. Things had gone about as I expected them to go back in Nerima. If I am lucky, I'll never see them again.

I snort. If I'm lucky? Since when have I ever been lucky? I'll probably see them by the end of the week. Oh well. If they do show up, then I'll just have to make good on the threats. They were the kind of thing that they never would expect Ranma to do, the threats. But I have every intention of making good on them if I need to.

I take a quick glance around me. I'm alone. Finally alone. Dusk is falling around me as I wait for the rice to cook. I don't really need it. The rice. I can subside off of energy alone if I need to, or just replenish myself autonomously, but I have become rather fond of some things. A warm bed is one, but I very much doubt I'll see much of those. I have, basically, declared war on my own kind. They could come at any time of the day, in any place. My only consolation, is that they are far more likely to come to Juuban than anywhere else. Thanks to my previous efforts, almost all of Tokyo has become free of barrier points, making it the weakest spot in the web. Juuban is the only section of the town that still has any sizable number of points, making it the most likely spot to be assaulted.

That meant a twenty four hour watch. I would position myself as close to the center of the remaining points, and just hope to move fast enough to catch them before they succeed. Not a good plan. I really need some assistance.

I consume my meal quickly and then, kicking dirt on the fire as I shoulder my pack, I set out to implement my plan. I had several advantages on my side. Firstly, surprise. The Seconds and Firsts have no idea that I exist, and that I'm trying to stop them, of that I'm so strong. My second advantage is experience. I can remember just how much trouble I had originally, locating and undoing the points. This should give me ample time to sense, approach, and destroy anyone trying to deal with the points.

I walk at a normal pace, the streets around me nearly dead. Its late and most people are returning to their homes, ignorant of what I am, and the danger they are all in. Its best if I remain in my human disguise when I'm fighting. The Sailor Scouts could show up at almost any of my fight, and I want their support, not a shot at the back while

I'm distracted.

As the evening dark grows, I take a moment to reflect on the status of my life. I'm alone, the last member of an almost extinct race, fighting a losing battle against vastly superior numbers, with dozens of enemies on the side, no place to stay, and all my worldly possession held in a sack over my shoulder.

I start to whistle a cheerful tune.

I had long ago whittled away all the barrier points in the city of Tokyo one by one. I could travel really easily at night, and I had free range in this city for almost a two years. Plenty of time to work with. I had only avoided the Juuban prefecture because of the Sailor Scouts, and there rather illustrious demon crushing record. Definitely best to avoid that, because at that time I had still considered myself inherently weak because I was a Third. After my battle with Saffron, that illusion had been shattered, and I realized just how powerful I had become. That does wonders for your confidence, so I had begun to range a bit more freely.

The center of Juuban itself had a relatively low number of naturally occurring barrier points. The south and east portions had more, but they had been the ones I had been whittling away at for the last month. The west was basically untouched by my hands, and to the north... The north had one of the highest concentrations of points I have had the pleasure of seeing. If the attacks would come from anywhere, they would come from there. That many points in one spot represents an enormous knot in the barriers mystic net.

Nothing to do but to wait there, and they would come.

By now the streets are all but deserted. Full dark has set in, and a small twinkling of stars, those not outshone by the streetlamps, glitter above me. I leap into the air, bounce of the walls of a lower building, and land on the roof of a convenience store. From there I begin my rapid northward advancement.

Now the really annoying part of my plan takes place. I had no way of knowing when or where any attack might come from. My advanced perception could cover no more than a half a mile at tops. I was going to have to rely mainly on luck and constant movement to discover...

KRAK-THOOM!

Or I can simply head towards the explosions. This was becoming suspiciously regular. Why the hell are those idiots making so much noise? Bloody stupid Seconds. I think it must be some unwritten law that Seconds have to be ostensibly obvious in their attempts at anything.

The explosion had occurred two streets over from me. The last time I had come on one of these tussles I had been trying to escape detection. Now is a slightly different event. With two quick leaps I am on a building overlooking the battle.

Once more I see the five scouts scurrying around a big Second. The last time I had moved as quickly as possible upon detecting what they were fighting. Now I was consciously trying to evaluate their tactics, and hopefully pick out their names. If I was going to make allies out of them, I needed to impress them with my skills and manners.

It quickly becomes obvious that these five girls are young, inexperienced, and almost frighteningly powerful. Their attacks lack finesse, and are leaking impressive amounts of power, but they still manage to make sizeable impressions into the Seconds skin. They also lack real combat training, though the one in the green, Sailor Jupiter,

I think her compatriots just called her, manages to do a fair attempt at a block from one of the Seconds physical strikes.

While the last Second had been dark and scaled, this one was slightly different. It's skin had a rainbow complexion, one color bleeding into the next, with a putty like skin that aided in quick regeneration. It wasn't particularly fast or strong, but it did have some impressive flexibility. I grimace as it bends itself backwards, almost doubling itself, to avoid a flashy strike by yellow, excuse me, Venus. Venus' strike continues on and decimates a helpless tree sticking out of a mulched square in the sidewalk.

Overall rating? On a scale of one to ten, they each individually rate a three, maybe a four at best. They're just too untrained, although very enthusiastic. Together though, they score a high eight, maybe even a nine. In general they're just a team of bullies, unable to be effective unless they travel in packs. This group together could easily handle any Second, probably a good number of the Firsts as well.

But where are the others? I remember hearing that they're based on a planetary scale, minus earth which got gypped over for the moon. If the assembled collection here, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter, are this powerful, how about the others? Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto? Are they stronger or weaker?

I shake myself out of my reverie. The fight has continued while I was thinking, and the Scouts were holding their own. There is five of them to the Seconds one, and while the Second is making an admirable showing of itself, it really doesn't stand a chance. I might as well make myself known to the Scouts in a way that presents me in a suitably good light.

I shrug out of my pack, and hide it behind a small chimney on the roof. After a second of focus, my aura has been compressed down to a size that would be about normal, if a little strong, in a human. I move into a crouch near the edge of the building and tense, waiting.

The fighters are circling each other, a wary break in the combat. The scouts are directly beneath me, now to the side of me, and now the monster is below me. I see it preparing itself for an attack, and I carefully and undetectably focus my chi into razor sharp claws extending from the fingers in my right hand. The Second roars and takes a step forward to launch its assault, and I move in tandem with it.

The blast is leaving its hands as I propel myself downward with a kick from the side of the roof. My intended landing point is just a meter in front and a little to the side. As I pass it in the air, my hand lashes out in a vicious swipe. I settle myself in a crouch, my right hand extended to the side in a rather flamboyantly exaggerated sweep. I need to make a good impression. I must radiate power and ability, while passing off as nothing more than human.

The Sailors had narrowly dodged the blast and now were turning back to find me crouching in front of the Second. I don't have to look behind me to feel the aura of the Second faltering. I hear a thump, as the neatly sliced torso of the creature slides off of its pelvis, and falls to the ground. Its energies begin to disperse and its corporeal form dissolve as I straighten in front of the gawking stairs of the Scouts.

Externally I am calm, but with a serious expression on my face. Internally I'm sweating and fingering the collar of my shirt. Let them buy this. Please let them buy this.

"My name is Ranma. Sorry about this."

---

"We're the Sailor Scouts. In the name of the Moon we will right wrongs and punish evil. I am Sailor Moon," the multi-colored uniform declares, striking a pose. I try not to act bored as the others make their poses and their speeches. I will need their help.

"Now," Mars begins, fixing me with a glare. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" She seems antagonistic. Oh well, there's one in every group. Maybe she's just naturally bitchy. I can still win over the others. The ones in the yellow (Venus) and green (Jupiter) are fixing me with hungry looks that I have become all to accustomed too. Good. If they want me, they're more likely to aid me. Mercury is studying me, and typing on a computer that periodically lets out a few beeps.

"As I told you earlier," I begin. "My name is Ranma. Just Ranma. I was out here to do the same thing you're all doing. Fight these creatures." Geez, I almost called it a Second. That would raise too many questions.

"Why would you do that? And how did you do that attack?" Mars continued her interrogation.

Mercury's computer emitted one final beep, and than Mercury spoke up. "He appears to be human, but he's emitting an unusual power source," she tells her comrades as she puts away her computer. Shit. She had been scanning me. Thank the Lord... never mind. I'm just glad that I passed the test unconsciously. I wonder for a second if the power she sensed was just the unusually strong aura I'm emitting, or something about my origins. Double shit. No choice but to continue and answer Mars questions.

"I helped you because I hate these creatures. I used my chi for that attack," I tell them.

Mercury speaks up, "Your chi?" as Mars demands, "Why do you hate those creatures?"

I open my mouth to answer them...

"Ranma!" a voice shrills happily, and my memories are shattered by an extreme aerial glomp. What the...?

I look down at my chest and find, of all the people I might have expected...

"Hotaru?" I gulp.

She nodded vigorously, smiling up at me. I laugh out loud. Of all the pleasant surprises. I put my arms on the girls waist and lift her up onto my shoulder. She laughs and wraps an arm around my head to keep her balance. In a moment of introspection, I wonder how odd this would look to anyone else, an eighteen year old balancing a laughing a small fourteen year old on his shoulder. That introspection shatters as I hear voices calling at Hotaru.

I turn to find myself confronted by Haruka and Michiru. The two of them approached us, a little shocked and a bit suspicious of me having Hotaru on my shoulder.

"Excuse me," Michiru begins politely, with Haruka glaring at me suspiciously. "I can't help but noticing you have our daughter on your shoulders..." She trails off as I grin and extend my hand.

"Hey Michiru," I cheerfully quip. "It's only been a couple of days. You forgotten me already?" I assume by their surprised and blank looks that they have. "We met at your picnic last Friday." Recognition dawns on their faces, and I continue. "You two here with Hotaru? No offense, but you look kind of young to be Hotaru's parents." Not to mention your both girls, so I didn't mention it. Stranger things have happened...

Hotaru speaks up from my shoulders. "Mama Michiru and papa Haruka aren't really my parents. But they did adopt me, and we love each other like family." Ahh. How cute. Well good for them.

"We're sorry that Hotaru attacked you like that," Michiru says with a smile. "We didn't know you two were so close." I can't see Hotaru's face on my shoulder, but I can guess she's blushing from her aura. This serves to make me grin some more.

"Nah. Don't worry about it. I've had worse." I tell them. "What are you all doing her? Shopping?" Here is the well sized shopping complex in northern Juuban. I can't afford to rest, or stray to far from the center of the barrier points. I'm pretty sure that there won't be an attack for a couple of days, it takes a lot of energy to penetrate even the weakened barrier and the last two assaults were within days of each other which means that a lot of energy must have been recently used to penetrate so quickly, but you can never be too sure.

Haruka nods, still hesitant about how to act around me. "Yea. Shopping for more of Hotaru's clothes. She's been filling out a little bit, and needs some new bras." They might not be her natural parents, but they sure had the important parts down. Namely, embarrass the hell out of your kid. Hotaru's aura turns a brilliant crimson.

"Papa," she whines and I chuckle a bit. I pick her up and put her back on the ground. She quickly turns away in an attempt to hide her flaming face.

Turning back to the Haruka and Michiru I smile. "It was nice to see you two again. It was too bad you couldn't show up with Hotaru and Setsuna." I pause and look around for the greenhead, but she's nowhere to be seen. Shrugging to myself I continue, albeit a little disappointed. "But that's the way the cookie crumbles." I shoulder my pack to get it a bit more comfortable.

"Maybe we'll take you up on it some other time," Michiru says. And I give her a quick look.

"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry, but I can't take you on the tour anymore."

Haruka arched an eyebrow. "Oh," she asks suspiciously. "Why not?"

I have the sudden impression that Haruka is suspicious of everyone. Hotaru had turned back when I said I couldn't give the tour, and was giving me a weird look. I answer the question. "I left recently." Hotaru gasps.

"Left?" Michiru asked confused. "What do you mean by left?"

My smile fades slightly. "Exactly what I said. The situation there was insane. If it kept up at that pace, someone was going to get seriously hurt." I don't add 'by me'. "I really hadno choice, but to end it as best I could."

"But how Ranma?" Hotaru asks. "When you explained it earlier, the situation sounded kind of hopeless."

I'm struck by a sudden memory. The entire Tendo and Saotome families gathered around me. Paralyzed by the powder I had put into the soup to keep them still long enough for me to escape. I had told them...

"Well, there was one way out." I told Hotaru. The three of them watch me, and I shift my pack, made uncomfortable by the way they were looking at me.

"How?" Haruka asked. Suspiciously again.

Finally I answer. "All the marriage agreements were made out between the girls and one 'Ranma Saotome'," I tell them. "So I had my name removed from the Saotome registry. Without a Ranma Saotome in the family, all the engagements will fall through. Genma will have to make up all the dowries he had stolen, but it would do that fat bastard good to have to fix what he broke." I look at the three, and they all gape at me.

"You had your name..." Haruka began.

"...removed from the registry?" Hotaru finished. Michiru looked at me, pity thick in her eyes.

"What does that make you?" she asked softly.

I have a feeling that these three aren't going to accept the fact that I really didn't care to be on the registry. No doubt they're convincing themselves that my uncaring front is a noble attempt to cover my hidden pain or something. That might be true under normal circumstances, but I really didn't care. I'll only miss one person in the whole house...

I cup Kasumi's paralyzed face with on hand, and lean in to whisper in her ear. "If you had asked for me, if you had fought for me," I tell her, "I would have been yours gladly." I can feel the pain in her aura, the desire, and I answer it for just a moment. I lean in and plant a passionate kiss on her lips. Kasumi's aura turns gold with pleasure, and then I break it off. I turn back to Nabiki and Akane, and a feral grin breaks out on my lips. I reach into the sleeves of my shirt, and pull out a razor. "Now, about you two."...

"Is that why you have a pack? What are you doing up in Juuban?" Haruka asks me. I pull out of the past to answer her questions.

"Well, I thought a clean break would be the best. No hanging around or picking up my stuff, so this is all I took. I got a couple changes of clothes and some cooking utensils. The reason I come up here," I hesitate for a moment, and then decide that a twisted version of the truth would be best. "I came up here to do something about all the demon attacks. I mean, the Sailor scours are up here saving the world every day, and here I am, a fully trained and ultra-powerful martial artist slacking off and letting them take care of everything. Not good."

The three take this in for a moment. Hotaru's eyes are fairly glowing in admiration, and I can see a kind of grudging respect appear in Haruka's eyes. Michiru is smiling sadly.

"Ranma," she asks. "Where are you staying?"

Damn. I was hoping to avoid these kind of questions. "Well, I don't have any place of my own, really. But I've been living on the road for so long, I can make do with a park bench or a patch of grass. If I need food there's always a soup kitchens for the homeless."

Uh-oh. I think those might have been the wrong answers. A strange looks has appeared in Michiru, Hotaru, and even Haruka's eyes. Hotaru speaks up. "Ranma," she asks almost sweetly. "Would you like to stay with us?"

I have another sudden premonition. I wonder if these three are going to take no for an answer. I have to try at least.

"Well," I draw out kind of nervously. "I don't have any money to pay rent, and I probably would end up eating you guys out of house and home, plus it would be kind of weird for all of you to have to put up with a boy living in your house, and don't you have to ask Setsuna as well before you invite strangers into your house..." I trail off. The strange look in their eyes had become harder. They seem to loom up in front of me, a sudden and all together frightening appearance similar to Soun's demon head strike. "Yes?" I hesitantly answer their question. The three attack me, each latching onto a limb, and began dragging me out of the mall, their shopping forgotten.

I can only wonder how this'll effect my plans.


	5. Chapter 5

Finishing what you start

Chapter three.

Disclaimer? What's a disclaimer?

Previously: Why the hell should I write a 'previously' section? If you want to know what happened in the earlier chapters, READ THE EARLIER CHAPTERS!

"What's the barrier?" I ask innocently. My father looks down on me and smiles sadly.

"A long time ago, there were some people who were very jealous of our people," he begins. "They were jealous, and they were afraid. They were afraid of us because we are different." My young mind takes a second to wrap itself around this concept. Fear because of difference? Thirds are different. Is that why no one likes Thirds? My father continues. "They betrayed us and locked us up here," he sweeps his hand to take in the entirety of our surrounding. Lightening crackles from the foggy sky, shattering a boulder no more then five feet away from us.

We ignore it, as such events were common. "They wrapped the magic of

the planet, the Earth, and perverted it. The perversion turned upon us, hurting us, binding us, and ultimately throwing us here."

"Is that what the barrier is, father? Is that why we're trying to get rid of it?"

My father looks into my big eyes and smiles. He opens his mouth and...

BUMP.

I'm brought back to the present by my head being propelled into the ceiling when Haruka hits a speed bump at close to sixty. Race car driver my ass. She's just bloody loony. I look to my left and find Hotaru completely unaffected by the car clearing nearly five feet of height in jump. She's securely buckled in an latched onto my arm.

On my right is Michiru, also buckled and latched. In the front seat next to Haruka is my pack.

I sigh imperceptibly. They had used this arrangement to keep me from trying to run away, and the sad part is it had worked beautifully. Well, perhaps I should look at the bright side. At least I'll have a warm bed to relax in between battles and, if I get injured, a place to recover in. My eventual acquiescence to their rather forceful offer

had nothing to do with a warm bed or food. Absolutely nothing.

When I look on the happy faces of the three women, I feel the cold in my stomach, the hatred and anger over what happened, thaw ever so slightly.

Another definite plus is where there house is. If I recall correctly from the time I had taken Setsuna and Hotaru home their house was located close, though a little to the north, of the center of the thick knot of barrier points. It was a convenient location, if one is forced to have a base-of-operations.

Speaking of which. I am treated to the delicious sensation of a car being pulled into a tire screeching spin at close to fifty mph, after the car turned twice it slowed to a stop, almost precisely centered in a little parallel parking spot in front of the midsize house that the three girls lived in.

"Neat," I say, completely unshaken by the insane driving skills

displayed here. "I can't wait to see how you pull out." I take a distinct pleasure out of the knowledge of the fact that I had made suspicious Haruka laugh out loud, while Michiru and Hotaru giggled. Exiting the car was a messy little affair, as neither Michiru or Hotaru wanted to let go of my arm, worried that I might try to dart, and so each tried to pull me out behind them in the other direction. After that affair had been taken care of, Haruka shouldering my light pack and Hotaru fairly dragging me with eagerness, we walked up the steps of their house, and I took my first step into my new, albeit temporary,

home.

Wow. It appears like these girls are loaded. There are two ways for people with cash to spend it. There is gaudy opulence, with chandeliers in the bathroom and diamond studded toothpicks, and there is refined elegance. The girls' house was the latter. A fine carpet lay in the hallway, plush and nice, without screaming 'expensive'. A tasteful pastel color scheme graced the walls, occasionally accented by

a relaxing nature scene picture.

Hotaru, still firmly latched on, begins to drag me on a tour of the house. Thankfully Michiru had let go and gone to do whatever it is she does. Hotaru showed me the kitchen, the dining room, Haruka's study, and Michiru's music room. Here it is I found our whatever it is that Michiru does. She plays the violin. Very well, apparently from all the awards on the walls. Hotaru dragged me upstairs and continued the tour. She nodded at the bathroom, Haruka's and Michiru's room, (they share one, how about that) and the library. I notice another room

that she forgets to show me in her haste to get me to her room.

"What's that one?" I ask, trying to slow her down before she gave me rug burn from the dragging. Hotaru looks at it, and then shrugs.

"That's mama Setsuna's room," she says indifferently. "Mama Setsuna is out a lot, but when she is in, that's usually where she stays." She started to drag me again, and I let her, but continue with the questions.

"What does Setsuna do? Where does she go?" Hotaru starts a bit, and glances nervously to the side before answering. I wonder what that means?

"I don't really know what she does when she's gone," Hotaru says. "You should ask her. And here's my room," she proclaims triumphantly. I look around.

Wow. This is so not what I'm expecting. Rather than lacy pink and baby bopper boy bands, the room is tastefully decorated with dark purple walls. Black lace curtains hang partially opened at the windows. A bookcase full of poetry with names like Milton, Yeats, and Keats. A fluffy pink bunny rabbit. Well, the last bit I kind of expected,

and when Hotaru saw me looking at it she colored and quickly shoved it

under her bed.

"This is a really neat room," I honestly tell her. Her blush deepens. Definitely a crush there. Oh well, she'll get over it. I hope.

"There you two are," Haruka says from the door way. Hotaru jumps in surprise, but I just calmly turn around. There are certain advantages to being a super powered martial artist. One is that there aren't many people who can sneak up on you. "I put your things in the guest room next door," Haruka continued, "I'll let you unpack. There's a dresser and a closet in there."

"Thank you," I answer simply. Haruka cracks a small smile. She doesn't seem quite as suspicious or hostile as she was earlier. That's good. Not like all 'important to my plan to gain revenge' good, but its nice to have people like you' good.

"One more thing," she adds. "Has Hotaru shown you the bathroom?" I nod, and she continues with a grin. "Well take one, you need it." She backs out of the doorway and walks on. I sniff myself speculatively as I hear her tromp down the stairs. Yup. She's right. I do.

I turn back to Hotaru. "Do you guys have any laundry machines?" Hotaru nods. "Well then. I'm going to grab a change and a bath. I'll take my time, but if I'm not back by tomorrow... Wait longer." Hotaru laughs and I leave her room, politely shutting the door behind me.

The guest room is small without being cramped, a futon in the corner next to the dresser and the closet Haruka mentioned. It's the work of seconds to unpack, mainly as I only have one change of clothes, and I'm going to need those after the bath. I pad down the hallway, passing Hotaru as she comes out of her room. What a nice little

place. I could really get to like it...

I freeze, one hand on the knob of the door to the bathroom. What's that? My senses extend for a moment, and I let go of the knob and step back. Hotaru speaks up as I look at it.

"What are you waiting for?" she asks, curious.

"Setsuna to come out." I had almost pulled an Akane. The last thing I want to do is to walk in on Setsuna. That would be hideously impolite. Really self gratifying, but rude nonetheless. Hotaru cocked her head to the side and gave me a puzzled look.

"What makes you think that mama Setsuna is in there? She isn't even home half the time."

I turn to give her a look. "You pick these things up with time," I tell her primly. As if in emphasis of my earlier declaration, the door to the bathroom opens behind me. Hotaru gapes past me, and I give a quick look before I turn back around immediately.

Setsuna had been in there alright, and now she stood in the hallway, giving me a surprisingly cool look for someone who had just left the bath wearing nothing but a towel to discover a stranger of the opposite gender in the hallway right outside the bathroom that they had been bathing in. I stayed turned around so I wouldn't gawk and embarrass her or myself.

"Ranma," she greets my back. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

"Sorry about this," I tell her over my shoulder. "But it's not entirely my choice. Your three house mates can be really insistent." I can almost hear her raising an eyebrow. Hotaru laugh embarrassedly in front of me, rubbing the back of her head and staring at the ground in a fair imitation me when I'm acting embarrassed.

"Well," Setsuna says, "while I would love to stay out here and talk, it would be definitely better if I were to go get dressed." Speak for yourself. I wouldn't mind. "I'm sure Hotaru can tell me the whole story later. Excuse me."

I try not to watch her as she walks calmly to her room. I try not to notice the way the towel dropped in the back to give me a superb view of her slender back, strands of her dark green hair slipping out of the towel she had wrapped around her head, and her strangely cinnamon skin. I don't try very hard. What a looker, and with a personality to

match. Oh well. I very much doubt that I'll be able to take her as my slave now. Bummer. I turn back to the bathroom, and prepare myself for a nice, warm, relaxing bath.

----

The bell on the door rings when I open it. Konatsu stands next to thedoor, and bows to me.

"Mr. Saotome," he greets me. "What can I do for you today?"

"You can lock the door and come with me when I talk to Ukyou," I tell him. Konatsu jumps at my dead serious tone.

Y-y-y-yes, Mr. Saotome," he actually stutters, even managing to look feminine in his surprise. The diner is empty, and so when Ukyou comes back from whatever it was she had been doing in the back and sees me she attempts an Amazonian glomp. I stop it with an outstretched arm and a look.

"Ranchan?" she asks, nervousness crowding in on the word.

"Ukyou," I tell her. "We have to talk."...

----

A clicking noise awakens me from my hot bath induced thoughts. Someone opening the door to the bathroom. I wonder who it could be. A quick check labels it as Michiru. For a second I wonder if she's going to walk in on me, but than I hear her rustling through the clothes.

What is she doing? I hear her move from the hamper, and it dawns on me. The laundry. A second after that thought I hear the washing machine kick in. It kind of makes sense. She's so used to just the four of them, that she probably just did this automatically whenever someone was in the bath. Hell, she might even think I'm Hotaru in here. A few seconds later she's out, and the door clicks behind her.

I release the muscles I had unconsciously tightened. It had become almost reflex by now, a legacy from the wild days of Nerima. I equate bathroom invasions with beatings subconsciously now. It'll be good to get away from that.

The bath was really what I needed. The coldness in my stomach, the hate and rage that the news of the extermination of all the other Thirds had created, no longer seemed so biting. That might have just as much to do with the company as the bath, but it doesn't matter in the long run. It still feels good.

Now, what to do about my hosts? I really shouldn't mooch off of them like this, but what can I do? They had literally dragged me here, and the only way I can see out of here is fleeing in the night. That would be rude. Perhaps I should just accept? No, that would be rude too.

After mulling the problem over thoroughly, I sigh. The only course of action I can really see is to offer, with all four of them together, to leave. If they really insist on me staying, I guess I'll stay. My course decided on, I get out of the hot bath and go to change. Michiru had, thankfully, not washed my clean clothes as well as my dirty ones, so I slip on my underwear and outerwear, and leave the bath. A quick check of the house reveals everyone below me and in the dining room. I invite myself down.

The voices of the four are lifted in pleasant and light conversation, and I pause at the threshold of the room, almost afraid of breaking in on them. I watch them silently, hidden in the shadows. Michiru and Haruka sit close to each other at one side of the table, with Hotaru sitting at the head next to them. Setsuna sits on the other side of the table, closer to the head opposite Hotaru. The two obvious lovers, Michiru and Haruka are laughing and reciting stories about their respective jobs, with Hotaru occasionally quipping in with a joke or a laugh. Setsuna calmly asks the occasional question, paying equal attention to her food and her companions. They look so happy. I'm suddenly shamed by a burning envy coursing through my body. Envy at their happiness. Envy at their normality. Envy at their camaraderie.

"Their you are," Michiru suddenly calls out. Her voice breaks the spell the scene before me had woven. The envy disappears, and I grin at them from my position. "We were worried that you might have fallen asleep.

"Maybe just a little," I joke back. I scratch the back of my head with one hand, and the back of my leg with one barefoot. "Look," I tell them seriously. "I know you all want to be nice, and take in a stray, but are you all sure about this? I bring trouble like a storm crow, and I have no way to pay. I'm sure you all have lives that don't need me jutting into. Are you all positive about me staying?"

The four exchange glances, and Setsuna speaks up for them. "Two days ago I offered you help if you ever needed it. The offer remains open. We will not force you to stay, but it will not inconvenience us, and we would very much like it if we could help you."

That was all I needed to hear. "So," I grin. "Mind if I join you lovely ladies for dinner?"

---

My senses are extended as far as they can. In a sphere with a radius of on half mile, I can feel every blade of grass, I can sense every cat, dog, squirrel, and human. I know that the neighbors two houses down are locked in passion. I know that one floor down, two of my hosts are copulating as well. Another of my hosts is peacefully asleep in her purple room. And the final one of my hosts...

"It's a wonderful house you have here, Setsuna," I say without changing the direction of my stare. She comes out from where she's concealed by a portion of extended roofing. I lay, staring at the sky, on the roof of the house that I have recently come to dwell in. Unlike the Tendo's, this house I willingly stay in. After demonstrating to the

four the finer art of speed dining, we all separated and spent the night doing various things. Hotaru went to bed, while Haruka went to take her own bath. Michiru had eyed me over, and then given me the chills when she mentioned something about 'wardrobes' and 'school'. Setsuna had simply disappeared. I hadn't had my senses extended, I had no real right to track her everywhere she went, but I think she had been in her own room.

"Thank you," she said quietly. I tap the roof next to me, and she gracefully strode across the roof, without looking at all silly walking on a roof in a business suit, and sat next to me.

"You want to ask me something," I prompt her after she had settled herself. She gave me a sideways glance, before tilting her head back and joining me in my contemplation of the stars.

"Yes, I did. Why did you run away from them?" she asks.

I don't jerk, or deny my flight. "I don't have to explain myself to you," I answer quietly. She looks at me again, and then gets up and begins to leave. "But I will," I continue. "You see it as flight do you?" She looks over her shoulder at me as I speak. "I don't. I saw it as a reclamation of myself, and my own honor. For too long, my honor, my future, and my life had been decided for me." I pause, and turn my head to look straight at her. "It had to stop eventually. There is no shame in allowing someone to pick your path for you, but there is no sanctity in following the course if it is foolish and dishonorable just because someone told you to do it."

Setsuna turns the rest of the way around and looks at me. I think she's measuring me somehow, against some kind of internal checklist.

"And how about you? I think you have some kind of duty, too. I don't know how I know this, but it is there." I can't read her gaze, but her aura has begun to churn violently. "Is it a duty that you wish to follow, or just something you are afraid not too?" She turns, and begins to walk away.

"I answered your question. You don't have to answer that one if you don't want to," I tell her back. She stops momentarily. I turn my head back to the stars, my real attention ranged over a mile circular distance. Beneath me, the two lovers had stopped their earlier action. "There's more to it than just taking control of my life. I need to do more than just exist," I continue. "As long as I'm alive, I'm not living unless I'm doing something. I always finish what I start, and I always start again when I finish. I've finished following. Now I got to seek." On the southern side of my awareness. I stand quickly, drawing myself back into me. Setsuna is still standing away from

me, her aura twirling in a more sedate fashion.

Without a word I descend from the roof, and without wasting time, I move towards the Second I can feel to the south.

----

In the previous two occasions I had had to deal with me kind, I had resorted to merely destroying them. But a third one in as many days? Something must be going on. The best way to find out information about the enemy, is from the enemy. The cold that had been dissolving in my gut solidified, hardened in anticipation of what is to come.

This time, the Second had been much more sedate in its attempt to destroy barrier points. It was probably waiting till after its accomplished its task to blow something up. Come at it from the north, and take a second to scope it out.

Large. Furred but not hairy. Humanoid but with a bull head. How original. Its arms are slightly out shaped so it can move as easily on four as on two. How to deal with it? Ah, the perfect plan.

I shrug out of my shirt, the only thing covering my torso is the chest wrap I had taken up wearing, fire up my aura. The Second looks up from where it had been studying the twist of magic. Upon seeing me, it forgets its mission and begins to snarl.

"Third," it spat like a dirty taste in its mouth. I make a mocking bow.

"The one and only," I tell it ironically. My hatred for it is kept in tight control. I wave my red silk shirt in front of me. "Come and destroy me, you useless Second. Ole."

The bull Second growls and shifts its weight to a four-legged position. "Useless Third," it growls. "I'll teach your corpse some respect." Too stupid to remember that our kind don't leave corpses, we just dissolve. It charges.

What follows is a gross parody of Spanish bull fighting, with me as the matador. I use my red shirt to gracefully guide the thing right past my body. It turns bellowing and tries again. I easily float out of its way, dodging its simultaneous hand strike. Again and again it charges, bellowing. Again and again it misses.

Enough. If I keep this up much longer, the Scouts might show up. Time to get my information. I move the cloth to directly in front of me, and as the bull thing charges, I leap up instead of to the side. Grabbing the creature around the waist, I push down on its head as I lift. The weight on its head drives the creature into the ground, stunning it with the force of both my weight and its own. I tear my shirt off of its head and lift it off of the ground, to pick it up and slam it down again.

"There have been three of you in the last three days," I tell it. "How have you been coming through so quickly?"

It growls its defiance. Oh good. I can have some fun. My hand clamp its jaw shut to keep it from screaming, and my other hand reaches for its arm.

After the creature finished its attempts at screaming, I released its mouth. Across the road from us lays the remains of one of its arms. "Portal," it gasps.

My eyes narrow. A portal? Already. This isn't good. If they have a steady gap through the barrier all ready, just killing their agents one by one isn't going to work. Shit. I need a new plan, some way to completely stop the invasion. But how?

Am I forgetting something? Oh yea, the creature. "Where is this portal?" It decides to play the hero again. I smirk viciously, and once again its jaw is clamped shut...

---

I almost growl to myself. Alright, I'm in the pit, I'm surrounded by cats, they're trying to kill me, yadda yadda yadda. When will that idiot give up trying to teach me this bloody useless technique. I let loose a few screams and sobs, already knowing that the fat bastard isn't going to give up until I learn this technique.

A cat jumps at me and I casually bat it aside. I need someway to impress the stupidity of this on the man, so that he will give up trying to teach me. But how?

Maybe if I make him think he succeeded? A plan slowly forms in my head.

Will it work?

No time but the present to find out.

I throw back my head and let loose a blood-curdling, inhuman scream. Then I propel myself out of the pit. Bending over and hissing like a cat, I decide the best way to impress on this human scum to stop, is to make it more physically preferable to him to not throw me in anymore. I unsheathe my claws...

---

A small knock on my door awakens me to the present. This has been happening an awful lot recently. The sudden memories. I wonder if it means something? But getting back to the present.

"Yes?" I ask from my blankets on the futon. "Who is it?"

"Ranma, are you awake?" Lets think. I just asked you who it is. Hotaru sure has a knack for asking irrelevant questions, but I don't say this out loud.

"Yea, I'm up," I instead tell her. "What'cha need, Hotaru?"

"Well," she begins, "I never really got to find what I was shopping for yesterday," her embarrassment leaks through the door, "and mama Michiru noticed how you only had a couple of shirts, and we were wondering if you'd like to come shopping with us?"

Once again a premonition chills me. That's been happening a lot

recently as well. Must be something to do with the weather. "Yea, sure. Give me a second to get dressed," I tell her. I hear her padding off and shrug out of the blankets. My pants are neatly folded by where I was sleeping, but my shirt...

My shirt had born the brunt of an assault by a bull-horned demon

creature, and taken a great deal of blood from the struggle that had taken place afterwards. My shirt was a lost cause. I take the chest wrap instead, and begin to wind it around me as I open the door to head out. I'm alone on the floor, and before I head downstairs, I stop by the bathroom.

Once more as I'm reaching for the door knob, I freeze suddenly. Someone is in there taking a bath. Maybe I should come back later...

"Ranma, hurry up or we'll be caught in the rush," Hotaru shouts from downstairs.

"Alright," I toss back. "Just give me a minute." I grit my teeth and knock on the door to the bathroom.

A splash answers my knock, and the splash is followed by a, "Who is it?" Haruka.

"Listen, Haruka," I call into the bathroom. "I need my shirt, and its in the wash. Can I jump in real quick to get it?"

A second of silence, and then, "Sure, but stay in the front room."

"Thanks," I answer and make good on my promise. A second later and I'm walking down the stairs, buttoning my shirt. This house is so great. Three incidents involving me and baths, and not one beating yet. This has got to be some kind of record.

I cut off the self congratulations when I come downstairs to be greeted by Michiru's eagle eye. She pins me with such an intense stare that I lock up under it.

"Ranma," she says with a predatory look. "You can turn into a girl right? Have you ever worn a dress?"

Me and my lousy premonitions. Oh boy.

---

"Look," I tell her. "I know you want to play dress up, and I'm willing to be your doll for a bit, but I have to insist. You can't buy any of these." 'These' are a pile of women's clothing ranging from complimenting business suits, to skimpy-as-hell-come-hither signs. After a basic session increasing my wardrobe from two to a more suitable

number, with me fighting the entire time to make sure that the clothes selected are practical as well as aesthetical, Michiru and Hotaru had latched on to me again and dragged me into a feminine clothing store. Michiru and Hotaru start to pout, and I rub the bridge of my nose and sigh. "It's just not practical."

"So its alright to wear guys clothes, but not girls? Is that it?" Michiru asks, trying to put me on the defensive. "Is it that bad, dressing like a girl when you're a girl?" And trying to make me feel guilty. It ain't going to work. Not now.

I decide for a moment of eerie clarity. "While its socially acceptable for a girl to be dressed as a guy, albeit frowned upon, for man with an unfeminine appearance to dress like woman is to invite the eternal scorn of his peers."

Blink, blink. The expression on their faces is almost as funny as the first time I turned into a girl in front of them. Michiru struggles for a second with a comment like that coming out of my mouth, and gives one final attempt at getting me to let her waste money. "I-its not like you just change back and forth spontaneously. You have to get hit by warm water, don't you? How often is that going to happen?"

As I stand there, dressed in my original Chinese ensemble after modeling a variety of things that they had picked out, bad luck turns into good luck. A passing cashier, trips over the pile that Michiru herself had picked out and falls, a cup of some corporate cliché coffee flies out of the cashier's hand, and drenches me, changing me from girl

to guy in a flash of tingly magic. The cashier gets up and keeps on going, while Hotaru giggles, and Michiru gapes.

"More often then you'd expect," I tell her, and that ends the argument.

As we walk towards the food court of the mall, me having been drafted into the baggage-bitch, I thank Michiru for getting me the clothes. "It's awfully big of you to get these for me," I tell her. "I was down to my last shirt."

"I thought you had two?" Hotaru chirrups from my side.

"I did," I tell them, "but I lost one last night in a fight with a monster." I keep walking for a second before I realize they had both stopped and were staring at me again.

"What?" I ask, perplexed.

"You actually fought one of them?" Michiru asks slowly as we get onto an escalator to go to the second floor. I nod, vaguely annoyed by their reaction. "What happened?"

"We mixed it up, I won, it died. Why did you look so surprised? I told you I was hunting them." They start walking again, although slower, and still looking at me like I had grown another head.

"I'm just surprised," Michiru tells me. "I thought that only the Sailor Scouts can fight them."

My annoyance has turned into curiosity. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, guns and things rarely have any effect, and the creatures are all usually very strong and fast. How did you fight it?" Hotaru had witnessed me during Nerima, so she had a better idea of what I'm capable of. She nodded slowly, I can see her remembering some of the things she had seen me do. Michiru was probably still laboring under the misconception that I'm just a regular human.

"I fought it with my bare hands, the way I always fight." We stepped off the escalator and start walking towards the food court. I'm about to continue when I'm interrupted by a familiar, and unwanted voice.

"Ranma! For what you did to Akane, prepare to die!" Ryouga shouts, charging at me with blood in his eyes from out of the Gap.

I toss the bags up, and push a startled Michiru and a jumping Hotaru to the side. I lean against the railing behind me, and use the force of Ryouga's charge to flip him and myself over the rail. I maintain a grip and swing myself back onto the second story, as Ryouga plummets to the first floor.

"Ranma, you coward," he bellows, obviously uninjured from the fall. "How dare you run away!"

I hold my hands out and catch the packages I had tossed up fall back in, not a thread of clothes displaced. I then have the amusing sight of Ryouga getting lost looking for the escalator (They can be so hard to find sometimes).

"Well," I say and turn back. Hotaru had seen the like before and shut her mouth when I turned back. Michiru could only gape and point. "What shall we have for lunch?"

Notes: Setsuna asks about Ranma's 'running' because she has such a high

commitment to her own duty. Maybe she had felt an earlier connection between Ranma's earlier fate, and felt betrayed when he had left it. I don't know, I just write the bloody thing.


	6. Chapter 6

Finishing what you start.

Chapter five.

If you're reading this, than you've probably seen a disclaimer before. Use your imagination.

Author's new note: The two parts I like in this chapter was the injuries at the beginning, and the dance club at the end. Most fics have Ranma utilizing the skill of the gods to walk away unharmed and victorious in all situations. I think that is bull shit. Hence, me demonstrating that even though in this fic Ranma might be a powerful demon, he is not the only one. The dance scene on the end I favor because of the interaction and insight into the two participating characters.

I hiss softly as my wounds come into contact with the hot water of the bath.

Oh shit, this hurts.

I place a wet wash cloth on my forehead, and take a second to take stock of the situation.

Its been one week since I moved in with the girls. I've spent most of that week patrolling the city, and doing a pretty good job of it. For every Second the Scouts had fought, I had fought two, and without word of it getting out. That is a classic case of good news/bad news. Good news: I'm killing the Seconds. Bad news: They're coming to bloody fast. I could barely keep up with them.

And then tonight happened.

It had seemed cut and dry. A Second was running a muck, blowing things up. I had moved to deal with it. Cut and dry, right? Wrong. As I was dealing with the Second, three Firsts had ambushed me.

Now, to establish the facts. The first is that I am much stronger than almost any Second. The second, is that I am also stronger, and much more skilled than most Firsts. Third, a portal can only let one creature through every couple of hours, meaning that there was definitely at least one other portal open. Fourth, attacking in packs doesn't just work for the Scouts.

I had been putting a fairly good showing for myself, all things considering, though it was a doomed battle until the Scouts came to my rescue. Two of the Firsts had bit the dust, both of them falling to the Scouts attacks, the third managed to escape. I had left quickly when the Scouts had turned to question me and even their suspicions had been temporarily shelved in concern for my injuries. They weren't as bad as they looked, which is good considering how they looked.

I let out a shuddering sigh. By now most of the burns, and a few of the lacerations were closed, but I still look like I had came out second best in an argument with a meat-grinder.

I think the wounds were a good excuse for me not noticing anyone sneaking up on me, and my first alert to someone else being in the room was a muffled gasp.

Oh no, someone's watching me. I'll jump up and scream 'pervert' tomorrow. I do manage to muster up enough energy to move the cloth and peer through the steam at whoever was at the door.

Hotaru stands trembling, a hand pressed to her mouth in horror. Oh no. She's not going to...

"Ranma!" she shrieks. Living move over, the dead are getting up. I mutter to myself and listen to the thumps as the rest of the house gets up. "What happened?!"

I know I shouldn't get upset, but its just so annoying the way she asks stupid questions like that. It's only the immense pain of moving that keeps me from making a sarcastic remark. As the rest of the house crowds behind Hotaru I move the washcloth back over my eyes.

"Look," I tell them tiredly. "Come in or get out, but shut the door. You're letting out the steam." The rude buggers completely ignore my request.

"Ranma," Setsuna asks, even her cool demeanor shaken. "What happened?"

I guess I can't blame them for their concern. Even with most of my burns closed, I look a mess. The bath water has been stained a decidedly pink color, from the dry blood and the fresh blood from my still open wounds. And if one of them had came home with a burn covering their left cheek, shoulder, and most of their back, as well as half a dozen claw marks all over the right side of their ribs, I would be pretty worried too.

"As bad as it looks," I tell them, regretting the words as the movement brought a lance of pain from the burn, "I have had worse." I don't know which is worse, the fact that I can say that with a straight face, or the fact that its true. "Its my fault for being so bloody careless. I never even considered the possibility of an ambush..." I trail off.

"Jesus H. Son-of-God Christ," Haruka whispers.

I spare the energy to crack a smile. "You gals sure know how to make a guy feel pretty." No one laughs. Oh well. It hadn't really been that funny.

I'm trying to relax and let nature take its course, when I'm startled by Hotaru putting her hands on my shoulder. I move the cloth covering my eyes and turn to look at her. Her face is set in a serious expression, and she's biting her lips with a look of concentration.

"Hotaru, what are you..." A glow suddenly rises from her, and her aura begins to leak into mine.

I gasp and arch my back as an agony crawls through me, spreading from where she touches me. What is she?... Wait. Under the pain I feel my cuts stretch and writhe, trying to close in on themselves. My burns begin to heal, in a utterly disgusting reverse bubble. She's trying to heal me. I can't let this continue. She might notice what I am. Plus the pain was becoming unbearable. She was trying to force her aura onto mine. This might heal a normal creature, but with my reversed aura, it could quickly become more than just painful. With a sudden move I slap her hand off of me with a resounding SMACK.

"Ranma?" she ask, looking hurt. A silence from the doorway greets my action.

"Thanks for trying," I tell her. "You helped a lot." I stretch a bit to show her that she had indeed helped a bit. "But I'm serious. I have had worse. I'll get better on my own, but I don't think you should try to heal me like that. You might hurt yourself." That's true. From just the little bit she had done, her aura already had a noticeable depletion.

I see her looking downcast, and sigh to myself. I reach out and grab her hand and her attention. "I can tell you're already exhausted from what you tried. Go to bed, get some sleep. Tomorrow, if you want, you can do a little more." I see her nod, though she doesn't look happy. I turn to look at Haruka and Michiru. "Put her to bed alright?"

They nod slowly, but when Hotaru tries to walk to them and stumbles, they are instantly at her side. I slouch back into the tub. The wounds didn't hurt as much as they used too, but they still burned with a slow throb of pain with every beating of my heart.

"Well, Setsuna," I say. The greenhead is still silently standing in the doorway, wearing a bathrobe. "How about you? You should get some sleep."

She looks at me for a second, and I really can't summon up the energy to look over her aura. "I think that if we leave you here alone, you might end up falling asleep and drowning in the bath. I'll stay until you go to bed too."

I smile sleepily. "You just want to watch me bathe, don't you?"

She says nothing, so I continue. "Come one Setsuna. If you don't want me to fall asleep and drown, you got to talk to me to keep me up."

Still nothing. Alright, I'll get the ball rolling. "Setsuna, what do you want out of life?"

"What do I want?" The question seems to puzzle her.

"Yea," I egg her on. "What do you want to be?"

Even without my aura reading, I can feel her hesitation. "I wanted to be a fashion designer." I don't know how I know or why, but I know that this admission took a lot out of her.

"Wanted? Why'd you stop?" I take deep and even breaths, concentrating inwards. I bend my energies to the task of healing myself. This would occur naturally on its own, but if I regulate it, I can make it quicker, more efficient.

"I accepted the position I have now, and it took precedence over anything I wanted." She sounded sad, but not angry. It was kind of like she had long ago given up her dreams for the greater good or something.

"Do you regret taking this job?" Regulating my healing is helping, but it will still take days to finish. Though what little help I'll let Hotaru give me will speed things up by maybe a day. I'm looking at about five days out of combat. Damn.

"No," Setsuna answers my question. "I don't regret it. Though sometimes..." She trails off.

This catches my attention. I abandon my attempts at healing myself and turn to look at the greenhead, twisting in the bath painfully. She's sitting on a stool she had dragged from a corner of the room to sit near me and the tub, looking off into nowhere. Her bathrobe is still closed for the most, but her top had opened just a bit more than modesty should allow, letting her green sleepwear peak through. "Sometimes?" I prompt quietly.

"Sometimes I wonder what it might have been like otherwise," she finishes in a whisper.

The silence hovers between us for a minute or two, her lost in thought, me afraid to break the moment. Not for the first time I'm struck by just how beautiful she truly is. The dim light of the bath floods her face with shadows, making her look old; old and tired. I'm reaching out before I know it, my left hand a mass of burns, dripping pink water, and I touch the side of her face. Almost a caress.

She starts, seeming to wake, and puts her hand up to mine. She starts to grab it, but stops when she feels some of the blisters straining under the fragile skin holding them closed. She instead just touches it for a second, and then pushes it away.

"I don't want a bath any more. Will you help me to my room?" I ask quietly. She nods and stands, and I follow, a slow second afterwards.

She looks over me, and I hear her take another breath as the full extent of my injuries make themselves apparent to her. I guess she couldn't see earlier how far the burns had extended, blocked by the bath wall, and the nearly opaque water. Most of my bleeding has stopped by now, and she gives me a hand as I step out of the bath.

I don't need her help to walk to my room. My injuries are bad, but I can ignore them if I need to. Its just best not to ignore them if you don't need to. I don't bother putting on any clothes, as they would just inflame my injuries while I sleep. The same with the blankets. I merely lower myself onto the white sheets, kicking the fuzzy blankets aside, not wanting to bleed on them.

"Could you tell the others not to wake me tomorrow?" Setsuna merely nods to my request. As she shuts the door behind her, I toss out a farewell. "Sleep well Setsuna." The click of the door is my only answer.

---

I wake the next day to a sticky situation. Namely my sheets. Some blood had leaked out of an odd slash, and some lint from the fuzzy blankets in the corner of the room had stuck to my burns. Oh well, it'll come off. I move myself into a sitting position, trying for a moment to cross my legs before I decide against it.

I take a deep breath and begin to focus again on healing. Without distractions this time, and with a slightly rejuvenated aura, I find my energies, and set them to work. While the effects aren't quite as noticeable to the naked eye as Hotaru's snappy little trick, I'm still confident that I'll be more than capable of getting back to business in a week or so.

The question is: Now what?

Ambushes are out of the question. This last incident proves that. The fact that they had four creatures involved in this operation is conclusive proof that more than one portal is open. And a First escaped. It'll bring back news to the Lord that a strong Third is out there, and alive. My cover is blown, and a gorilla war is rapidly looking to be a losing battle. Now what?

The door to my room creaks as open, shaking me from my musing. Michiru's worried face peeks in. She flinches when she sees I'm up.

"You should lay back down and get some sleep," she tells me softly. I'm an invalid, not a glass statue, but most people seem to equate the two. "We should get you to a doctor for those."

I sigh slightly. We've had this discussion before. While I have never had quite so many wounds, I have come back bleeding before. Michiru had panicked the first time, and tried to drag me to the hospital, but I had shaken her off, and the next day the wound had almost healed on its own. I told her I didn't like hospitals, that I didn't trust them. And I don't. Human tech isn't the greatest, but it still should be able to determine that I'm not human. Better safe than sorry.

"No," I tell her. "I'll just get them dirty, and my wounds need fresh air." I hesitate for a second, and then decide. "Do you have some cold water? I'm not going to be able to wear much clothes safely for a couple of days. It'll be less embarrassing for everyone if I'm a girl." Michiru nod's reluctantly, and disappears from the door. I can hear her pad down to the bathroom, and run some water, and then pad back. I get up and go to the door to get my cup. Several of my burn blisters squeeze uncomfortably, one even popping. Wow, I'm a mess.

Now what? The gorilla offense has proven itself out of the question. The thought of running, or assuming an even more defensive position never even crosses my mind. You can't win with your back to the opponent, or hiding behind a wall. Perhaps a more aggressive attack? But how? What could I possibly do to stop them?

The questions swirl in my head as I accept the water, and change my gender. On my more petite form, the wounds look even worse. They're still their to the same extent as on my guy form, but now their in miniature. Proportional to my size. They clash with my innocent features and attractive body.

"What time is it?" I ask. How long have I slept?

"Its about three in the afternoon," Michiru tells me. "We had to force Hotaru to go to school. She wanted to be here when you wake."

"That's really sweet of her." And I mean it. "When she gets back, if she still wants to she can help heal me again."

"She's waiting in her room." Michiru hesitates. "I think she might have been crying."

Guilt factor: 7.3. I sigh. "Send her in."

I seat myself in a lotus position, taking a moment to decently cover my waist and legs with one of the bloody blankets. I'm settled for only a moment when Hotaru comes in. Her eyes are red, and she tries not to sniffle slightly. Her aura radiates sadness, helplessness, and depression. This wasn't just because of my rejection of her aid. This is something more.

"Hotaru, what's wrong?" I ask softly.

She gives a little hiccup, a repressed sob, before she begins. "I should be asking you that," her aura's misery only increases. My eyes narrow. What's wrong here? Why is she reacting this way. I pat the blanket beside me, an invitation to sit that she ignores.

Hotaru stands in front of me. Her back ramrod straight, her head bowed so that her hair hides her face, and her hands clenched into little fists. "I thought that I could be normal to you, that you would never find out," she begins, her tears barely held back. "I thought that you could always stay here, and that you would never know what a freak I am. But last night I tried to heal you, and you saw that I can do things." The words come out faster now, and its all I can do to make sense of them. That healing thing? Her a freak? What's going on? "You saw and now you hate me, you won't even let me touch you, you won't let me help you, and you'll hate me, and now you're going, n-now y-y-you're g-going to l-l-leave..." she degenerated into sobbing.

I can't stand it. Wounds or not, I'm up in an instant, I cross the distance to the girl, and I draw her into an embrace. She stiffens for a moment, trying to stop her tears, but than she collapses, and she wraps her arms around me and puts her head down on my breasts and begins to sob like her heart was being torn out.

My girl side is a bit shorter and weaker, and that combined with my wounds aids to pull me down with her when her legs give out. I kneel in front of her as she tightens her arms around my waist possessively, and cries into my chest.

I think I understand. That healing thing she did last night, she must have done that in front of others. But instead of generating the respect that it deserves, it brought her only scorn. Scorn for being different. My good arm wrapped around her shoulder tightens, and I duck my head so that it lays close to her ear, and I begin to whisper soothing sounds into it. Is this what it feels like to comfort a sister? a daughter? a friend? a lover? I don't know. I've never truly had any of those. At the door I see Michiru and Haruka, standing frozen, drawn by the sound of their adopted daughter's tears. My burned arm waves them aside. Haruka looks for a second like she's going to enter anyway, but I fix her a look that can freeze blood, and she stops. Reluctantly the two shut the door. I can almost guarantee that the two will be hovering by the door, worried about their charge. They're good parents.

Hotaru slowly finishes crying. After the shakes slow, and finally stop, she just kneels their, wrapped in my embrace. After a second, she moves like she's going to let go, embarrassment plain in her aura, but I just tighten my grip on her.

"Listen closely, little Hotaru," I tell her softly. "I don't hate you, and I will never hate you. You're very dear to me. I love you like a sister, and I'll never leave you because I consider you a freak." I might have to leave her someday, but it won't be because I think she's a freak. The pot calling the kettle black.

When Hotaru realizes that she can't break my embrace, she just tightens it, not realizing the pain she causes in my blistered side and back, and I don't tell her. "Why won't you let me help you?" she whispers into my breast. "Why did you push me away last night."

I sigh softly. "Because it wouldn't have worked on me. Because if you had continued, I would have died." She tenses in my arms, and I continue. "You see, I am like you in a way. There's something about me, something special, something that makes people hate me. A difference."

"What is it?" she whispers.

"Promise not to tell?" I ask softly. She nods against me. "In everything there is an aura, a force, a chi, a ki, call it what you will. The thing about these aura's is that they move. Constantly. Every aura, for every thing, slowly rotates like fog pushed by a breeze. They all slowly twist, like water going down the drain. And almost everything in the world twists the same way." I stop for a second.

"Almost everything?" Hotaru asks.

"Everything. Animals, plants, rocks, even those demons out there. Everything, but me." I feel her shift against me, but I'm to far lost in my explanation to take in what position she's getting into. "My aura twists in the opposite direction. And where I grew up, everyone hated me for that."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. I don't think you need a reason to hate, or maybe just being different is enough. That's why you can't use your power on my. When you tried to heal me, your aura mixed with mine. It tried to stop mine, to move me in the other direction. If it had done that, I would have died."

She begins to cry again. Slow tears, not the desperate soul racking tears from earlier. "I j-just wanted t-to help."

I shush her gently. She cries for several more minutes, but to her it must have seemed like hours. She stops as she slowly descends into sleep.

Making sure that the blanket around my waist is tightly wrapped, I gently pick Hotaru up. Her grip around my waist refuses to loosen, but I cradle her head against my burned arm, and her legs against my good hand. I carry her gently to the door, and open it with my foot. Haruka and Michiru are there, looking desperately worried.

"She's fine. She just tired herself out worrying about me. Here," I offer her to them, but they exchange one of those inscrutable feminine glances.

"I don't think we could take her from you without waking her up," Haruka says finally. "Could you put her to bed?"

What's up with them? Women. I carry Hotaru gently to her purple room, and gently set her down in her bed. I try to pry her arms off of my waist, but she just tightens them and murmurs darkly. Oh boy.

Luckily, one does not stay alive as long as I had without learning to think quick on your feet, or get out of a grab. I use my toe to reach under her bed and pull out her big pink bunny. A second later and Hotaru is comfortably nuzzled against her stuffed animal, sleeping soundly.

What a little cutie. I gently smooth her hair, and smile at her for asecond. Someday she'll make a lucky guy very happy. I turn around to leave and start slightly.

Setsuna continues to look at me from the doorway, and I blush slightly. It must look really odd. A hideously burned red head, topless, and with a blanket around her waist putting a fourteen year old girl to bed. Oh well, I've been in worse. I put a finger to my mouth, as though Setsuna of all people might be loud enough to wake up the girl, and move to the doorway. Setsuna's aura is a confusing swirl of colors, mixing so fast that I can barely discern her state of mind, but her face remains the picture of serenity, and she moves with me into the hallway so I can shut the door behind me.

Once in the hallway, I'm treated to the experience of all three of the mature ladies in the house giving me that patented inscrutable look that women are fond of throwing around. I scratch the back of my neck reflectively, and wince as I remember just how injured I am. The excitement has driven it right out of my mind. My back and arm has several blisters oozing pus from where Hotaru had broken them with her hug. They hurt too. Oh boy.

"Well," I break the silence. "I'm going to get more sleep. Good night."

---

Now what? An offensive strike. Against what? Anything that will slow the invasion. What would do that?

I don't know. It's the day after Hotaru's crying episode, and the noon sun descends from the skylight, drenching my body in a warm ray. I'm in a lotus position, the bloody blankets my only clothes. Even as I consider my next course of action, my body is focused on healing itself. Four straight hours of this has done wonders for my injuries. The lacerations on my side have degenerated into nothing more than puckered scars, and will soon disappear altogether. The burns are tougher to handle, as they involved the actual loss of meat. It will be much harder to grow back, and leave me severely depleted of energy for at least two days.

I wonder if there's some way to refill my energy quicker. I really don't like the idea of five days of inaction. Five days could make all the difference. He-Who-Remembers will know that anyone of our kind would take at least a couple of days to recover, and he would press the Firsts and Seconds to get as much done as possible. He would...

Wait a second. He-Who-Remembers is the undisputed Lord of my kind. He's the only thing that keeps the Firsts from degenerating into a chaotic civil war for dominance. If the Firsts were to fight, they would almost certainly drag the Seconds into it. The battle could go on for years. Knowing the way the Firsts are all completely convinced of their own superiority, the battle might even result in the death nearly the entire species.

But killing He-Who-Remembers...

There's a reason that he is the undisputed lord of my kind. It's because he is unbelievably powerful. He is millennia old, and can remember before the barrier was placed up. To fight him would require an unbelievable amount of power.

Power. It just keeps returning to power. If I had enough power, I wouldn't be sitting here in a pool of light burning energy to repair myself. After all, where am I going to get power from? Age would bring it, or a lot of strenuous exercise. But I haven't the time for that. I need a quick fix, and there is no such thing as a...

"You look deep in thought," Setsuna says to me.

Geez. How did she sneak up on me? I must be deep in thought if I've didn't even feel her aura...

Her aura.

"That's it!" I declare, leaping to my feet. Setsuna looks startled as I start to dance around the room, and becomes even more so as I sweep her into it.

"Setsuna," I grin at her. "Has anyone ever told you you're as smart as you are beautiful?" I twirl her around before pulling her startled body into a dip, and planting a kiss on her lips.

About than, my brain catches up with the rest of me. Lets see. Me, a girl, half naked, holding Setsuna close to my body, and kissing her. I consider freezing up for a second, and than decide the heck with it. Always finish what you started. I pull her up out of the dip, spin her around twice, and stop my dance.

Setsuna's shock and embarrassment over my action was so great that it had even slipped onto her face. All she can do is stare at me, touching her lips, her snappy business suit all in a disarray, a blush on her cheeks.

"Hey Setsuna. Wanna go out tonight?" I ask with a grin.

---

The music throbs in time with the lights and the couples on the dance floor. A bar resides at one side of the room, normal lights illuminating the drinks so that the bartender can snap out the drinks, and see the bottles to catch them as they twirl the jars of alcohol around like cheerleaders with batons. The dance floor takes up the center of the room, with a row of booths arching all around the edge of the room. Setsuna and I are in one such, both of us nursing our drinks, Setsuna nursing her thoughts, and me nursing the gentle flow of energy from the people sweating on the dance floor.

"Neat place, no?" I say to Setsuna, leaning close and speaking up so that she can hear me over the noise.

Setsuna raises an eyebrow. So much for starting a conversation that way. I lean back some more, sipping my club soda.

All around us are people dressed in the most ludicrous costumes. Some wore masks, others pile on the make up. Feathers, sequins, patches, and fringes adorned peoples clothes. A few cat-people walked around, fake tails swishing around their feet. I grin at these. If only they knew...

Others are dressed like birds, kings, jesters, beggars, dead man, monsters. A menagerie of the fantastic. I myself am wrapped in bandages which are pragmatic as well as fashionable. I'm a guy, wanting to be a man for the date, and my clothes are saggy patchwork velvet. A bandaged fool. I think I had earned the costume rather well.

Setsuna was dressed up in the strangest get-up I have ever seen her wear. A dark green dress, cut to fit snugly across her waist, and fall in little bundles down the skirt. It was cut higher in the front, right under her knees in front, and trailed to the floor in the back. The dress came up to her neck, fanning high at the sides and back, and with long sleeves, that belled open at about the wrists. Her hair was done up and high, coiling around her head and up on itself, balanced on her head.

All in all the end product was stunning. I guess I should expect as much from someone who wanted to be a fashion designer when she was a kid. She would have done real good at it.

She took a sip of a little crystal glass of wine, and I try to start a conversation again. "That's a real nice dress. It looks good on you," I tell her. Women love it when you tell them they look good, don't they?

Apparently not Setsuna. A glacier could have been warmer. Bloody piss, she's not even trying to have a good time. I hate it when people set out with the sole goal of not enjoying themselves. I sit back again, wincing slightly from the pressure of the chair on my, greatly reduced I might add, burns. Oh well. I might as well start the second part of my reason for being out here.

All around me, people are living. Some of the people in the club are having a great time, yellow aura's of enjoyment flaring around them; others are here to wallow in self pity, and they sit at the bar with auras of dark depression brooding over them; others stare around them, desperate for human companionship, red of lust and desire snapping at the passers-by.

I begin to absorb their auras. Just a little bit of them. Too much and people would notice, and I don't want to draw attention to myself.

Now, earlier I mentioned that I don't need to rely on others for energy. This is true, and one of the reasons that I don't often do this. The other is that its dangerous. Not dangerous as in 'She's gonna blow, duck for cover' dangerous, but in a more subtle fashion. Its addictive. It is very easy to get hooked on that much energy, to come to rely on having that much strength. The problem is, its only a quick fix. It can be absorbed, it can be stored, but it can't be replenished naturally. So when you get used to having it, you become reliant on absorbing it. And if you've absorbed that much, why not absorb more? Like a drug, you need more and more of it, until eventually it rules your life. If you just let your own energies get used, you eventually build up a greater natural store. It takes longer, but is much more reliable. However, I need all the energy I can get if I'm going to break through the barrier, and assassinate He-Who-Remembers.

"Why are we here?" Setsuna asks me. I pull my attention back into the cubicle.

"What?" I ask, startled by her sudden question. Setsuna gives me a look that I recognize. It's a patented 'you were looking at another woman and not paying attention to me look' and I move to smooth it over. "What do you mean by 'here'?"

"This club. Why are we in a place that requires a costume to get in?" I regard her and her aura for a moment, but once again, both are unreadable. Her face a picture perfect mask of coolness, her aura a whirling collage of unrecognizable colors.

"Well," I begin slowly. I could have gone to any club and gotten the energy I needed, but I picked this one out for a specific reason as well. I tell her it. "I remember how you said you sometimes wonder what it would have been like if you hadn't taken the job you have now." I wonder what it was? She never told me. "And I thought that you might like this?"

"Why did you think that?" she asks, fixing me with a look as though she hadn't decided whether or not to take offense at my statement.

"Because," I smile slightly. "Everyone here is pretending to be something they're not. I thought you might like the chance to pretend as though you hadn't taken the path you had."

Her outward expression doesn't change in the bit, but her aura catches, for just the barest hint of a moment. Than its color solidifies into one I think I recognize. Determination.

"You asked about my dress," she says, and I lean in so that I can hear her over the murmur of the crowd and the music. "It was the kind that was in style, back before I started the job I have now." She pauses to sip her wine.

"You look beautiful in it," I tell her, and mean it.

She accepts my compliment with a slow nod of her head. "And how about you, Ranma?" she asks. "I told you what I wanted to be. How about yourself?"

I lean back a bit, taking a sip of my soda to buy myself time to think of an answer. Witty or honest? I think that I'll be honest. "I never had a specific. I just want to be useful. The kind of guy that finishes what he starts."

"And what kind of things did you want to start?" she asks. She suddenly finishes off her glass of wine in one quick drink, and pours herself another.

"Things that need to be done," I tell her.

"Done for who?" She finishes off that glass of wine quickly as well, and pours one more.

I rest my chin on the palm of my hand, and take a second to study the table. Things that need to be done. Done for who? My Lord? My fellow Thirds? How about myself? Have I ever done something that I needed for myself?

I remain silent.

Setsuna pours herself another drink, and finishes it again, and I suddenly realize that she's drinking an awful lot.

"Umm, Setsuna," I speak up. "Aren't you drinking a lot?"

She drinks one more, and than stands. She sways for a second, and than holds out a hand to me. "Would you like to dance, Ranma?"

Am I that hideous, that she needs to slam back five cups before she could ask? I stand up and take her hand. She leads me to the dance floor, where we begin.

The music throughout the night had been varied in the extreme, tailored to fit the colored crowd that attends the club. Hard rock had brushed elbows with country, gospel, techno, and classic. When we reach the floor a eighties dance tune had just ended, and a moderately fast waltz was just beginning. Standing close, the two of us begin to dance.

Now, I can jump up seven feet and perform the splits midair. I can launch back flips by the dozens. I can cross a piece of twine a hundred feet up in high wind and look graceful doing it. Dancing is no problem for me. Setsuna seemed to be a different matter.

She moved clumsily, overly self-conscious, and nervous. I pretended not to notice when she stepped on my foot, but I could tell that it embarrassed her. We continued our parody of a dance for a minute, before Setsuna finally tripped over the back of her dress. She regained her balance without falling, but turned to leave the floor, her aura crimson with shame.

No way. It ain't going to happen this way. I catch her elbow and she stops.

"Please let go of me," she asks. "I think I want to go home."

"You asked me to a dance. Are you going to finish what you start?" She unconsciously straightens her back. "Relax Setsuna. Remember, in here you're somebody who doesn't have the world on her shoulders." Slowly, she turns back to me.

Maybe it was what I said, maybe her determination not to embarrass herself. Maybe it was the five quick slugs of wine catching up with her. All I know is that as she slowly began to relax, her steps became more sure, more graceful. By the end of the waltz, it was like she had remembered steps she had long since thought she had forgotten. She floated beside me, both of us as smooth as though we were on ice.

The next song started, another slow song, and couples around us moved into close embraces, swaying with the music. I prepare to go back to our table, when Setsuna shocks me by stepping in close, and wrapping her arms around my neck.

Hey, who am I to complain?

She whispers it softly, too softly for most to hear, almost too softly for me to hear. "Tonight I'm just a fashion designer."

We dance on.


	7. Chapter 7

Finishing what you start

Chapter 6.

Author's new notes. Man, it's almost embarrassing to look back at teenage angst. My disclaimers of that time always make me laugh with shame. Does anyone else remember writing something personal, and than feeling so defensive about it that they nearly didn't publish it? Here it is, Chapter six, as raw as those that came before it. Read on.

If you've read this far, you've probably read the others. Good for you. I don't know which is more pathetic. You wasting your live reading this, or me wasting my life writing this. With that thought, None of these characters are mine. Except He-Who-Remembers.

"It has something to do with a spiral doesn't it?" I ask Cologne, studying the spiral I drew on the dirt. She nods, looking pleased with herself, like it was her teaching, and not my exceptional skills of observation, responsible for me figuring that much out.

"Indeed, son-in-law," its all I can do not to leave or gag, "The Imperial Dragon Ascension Blast is based on a spiral, utilizing hot and cold chi. When you became enraged and attacked me..."

I ignore whatever it is she says after that. Idiot. The technique. A spiral. Auras. Its no coincidence. A second before Cologne had launched her attack, I had seen it.

The technique is brilliant. Cologne, the old woman teaching me, has no idea just how brilliant. She thinks it has to do with hot and cold, but its more than that. The spiral that she had led me in had resonated with the spiral of her own aura, with the spiral of the auras of the trees and rocks. Her circle had been clockwise, and it had tapped into the aura of the Earth itself, causing eddies in the natural flow of things. The final blow had involved a thrust into the pattern of disharmony she had created. The results had been natures assertion of the natural order of things, I.e. the tornado. Colognes explanation was like saying that a key has magical powers, and when you turn it, its tarts the car on its own, completely bypassing the engine.

Now, if all it requires is a clockwise revolution, and my aura itself is naturally clockwise...

"May I ask what you are thinking, Ranma?"

I turn and give Setsuna a grin. "Sure, ask away," I cheerfully give her the go ahead.

She levels a commanding, no nonsense, don't give me any of that crap look that she seems really good at. But I can tell from her aura that she's really laughing inside.

"What are you thinking, Ranma," she deadpans.

"About an old technique I once learned. Something you wouldn't really understand if I told you."

"So. Do you think I'm not smart enough, or something along those lines?" She puts a hand on her hip, and levels another of her patented looks.

"Nah. Its just that telling you about it would involve a lot of martial arts jargon."

"Oh." She seemed to take that in stride, but I could tell that she's getting kind of curious.

Setsuna may not let much slide to the eye, but I have a feeling that communication won't be that much of a problem in this relationship. At least not from my side.

I reach in to the bag of popcorn to get a handful. The skin on my now burn free arm is still tight, and I'll have at least another day before I can move in my full range without the possibility of tearing.

Everyday for the last week, me and Setsuna had gone out at night. Sometimes to different clubs, sometimes to different activities (roller skating, spas, etc), and sometimes just out to the park. When we went to the clubs or activities, I would slowly drain away the auras of the crowds as they moved by. When we went to the park, I just enjoyed the time with Setsuna.

Damn, she is a great gal to be with.

And every day when we got back, I had to put up with Haruka and Michiru, circling like vultures. I don't know what those perverts are thinking, but they always wink at me when Setsuna and I get home, sweaty from the dancing of skating, or whatever. But considering the way those two go at each other, I'm not surprised at all. Setsuna usually manages to put on an impervious air, and walk by them. She apparently makes Michiru and Haruka nervous. But me on the other hand...

A plague of locusts descending on a crop is less thorough than those two questioning me for news about the date.

But I wouldn't stop it for anything. The more time I spend with Setsuna, the more I realize something.

I like her. More than her looks, more than her mind. I like her.

I think she likes me back.

I take another handful of popcorn, and the two of us sit and wait for the movie to start. I drain a bit of the aura from the audience, careful to exclude Setsuna from the drain. Only a bit now. A little more halfway through, and a final bit as we leave, and no one will ever know.

After doing this for almost a week, my stored power is monumental. I try to keep it strictly bundled up, locked away from use, but its still there. I don't know what the Scouts would make of this, so I better just avoid them until this is all over.

"Ranma," Setsuna says from my side. I draw my attention back to her.

"Yes?" I ask around a mouth full of popcorn.

As she's about to speak, the lights suddenly dim, and a loud hissing followed by an advertisement marks the beginning of the movie.

"Never mind," she says, and turns to the movie. I give her a curious look, and than I focus myself on the screen as well.

When I had first asked Setsuna to a movie, she had seemed hesitant at first. She had asked me what kind of movie and I had answered. My first choice had been a martial arts flick, but I was pretty sure that Setsuna wouldn't like that. I had considered a comedy, but Setsuna has always struck me as a serious person and I wasn't sure if she would like that either. So I suggested a drama for the two of us to go to. She had agreed, and we were off.

Of course, we traveled in style. Namely, her in my arms. It had taken me a bit to convince Setsuna that this is the fastest way to travel, and a bit more after that to convince her that its okay to wear pants (maybe her parents were killed by pants when she was young, and now had an unreasoning fear of them? Note to self: try not to be so stupid.). Finally she had donned the jeans, and now we could cover half of Juuban in less than a tenth of the time it takes to drive. It also gave me an excuse not to ask Haruka to drive us anywhere. Aside from the insanity she calls steering, it keeps her from giving me knowing looks. What a nosey girl.

It was a fairly good movie, with a slow plot, but excellent acting and character development to make up for it. It was halfway through, when I was pausing for a mid-show energy drain, that Setsuna hesitantly reached out in the dark theater, and took my hand.

I almost started, and spared a glance to my side without moving my head. Setsuna was still looking at the screen, apparently engrossed in the movie, but I could see her aura swirling, almost violently. A fear of rejection pulsed through her, and something else. So many of her emotions I can't recognize. I wonder if even she is able to recognize them half the time. How can anyone be this uncertain about dating? Especially someone as calm and in control as Setsuna? Someone with the poise and control Setsuna demonstrates most of the time cannot be shy. But every time we get in a situation like this, she goes all to pieces.

Not for the first time I wonder what happened to her in her past. It might have been a really bad relationship, or maybe some event in her childhood. Whatever it is, I had never asked. I had enough of that forceful invasion of privacy when I was in Nerima. If Setsuna wants to tell me about her past, I'll let her bring it up.

I squeeze her hand gently, and am rewarded with a flush of relief through her aura. I turn my attention back to the movie.

I definitely like her.

---

"It was a good movie," I tell Setsuna as we leave the theater. The crowd around us is chattering away, agreeing with my statement, and discussing the interplay between the actors. A few of them are yawning, though that might have to do with the time. It was getting on to midnight.

"Yes. I rather enjoyed it," she responds. She still hasn't let go of my hand. I think this is a big step for her. It might not be sex or marriage, but still a big step for her.

"Wanna call it quits for the night, or get a late dinner? There's gotta be a late-open ramen booth around here somewhere." I always feel strangely rotten after I drain on one of our dates, and I try to make it up to her. She doesn't realize that I have done anything to be ashamed of, but that doesn't make me feel any less bad about it.

"Maybe some ramen," she agrees. We stroll off, hand-in-hand down the sidewalk in the commercial center of north Juuban. The crowd from the movie disperses, a few getting into cars, the most walking, a few in bikes or waiting for mass transit to pick them up. The night is clear, and through the light screen made by street lamps stars twinkle in the velvet night sky.

The kind of night that seems to stretch on forever. We walk close to each other, our hands brushing against our hips occasionally, sharing warmth and company. Setsuna is her usual quiet self, and I wouldn't dare speak, for fear of breaking the peacefulness of the night. I had so very rarely had the opportunity to enjoy moments like these. Something always shatters them.

And something shattered this one.

A bellow splits the night.

I move to dodge the strike I can suddenly feel coming at my back. On my own I could easily do it, but this is far more tricky when I'm entangled with Setsuna. Even as she's starting from the noise, I'm twisting and jumping, putting my shoulder into her gut a little harder than I would have liked to, and leaping with her thrown over my shoulder. The attack, liquid fire, splashes over where we were standing moments ago. It melts the concrete beneath it.

I gain the roof and deposit Setsuna on the ground as gently as the circumstances permit. "Escape," I whisper to her as she lays, gasping from where I had knocked her breath out. "I'll try to lure them away. Get back home, quickly." I can feel them now. At least two Firsts. There might be more hiding out there, so I'll have to put some distance between myself and Setsuna. I have to keep her safe.

I move, wrapping myself in shadows as I do so. When I gain the street, I launch little shards of chi at the lights, drowning them out. I could easily escape, and just as easily take them out without fanfare. I have gathered a rather phenomenal amount of power over the last week. But now I was pissed. These bastard Firsts had interrupted my time with Setsuna. They will pay.

Now, let me take a moment out of my soon to be gory vengeance to explain a few things. My kind, like almost all other kinds of species, has a basic template with minor differences to mark the individuals. While humans have a similar appearance, most have a very distinct aural pattern, the opposite could be said about my kind. Why we may physically appear to be vastly different from each other (some scaled, some furred, some skinned, etc) we mostly have minor differences in our auras. These minor differences display themselves in out talents. Some of us might be able to produce liquid fire, others might have phenomenal strength, while another might be able to manipulate raw energy. While I am capable of creating liquid fire, it would require a lot more energy then I'm willing to put into something. My personal talent, is as I put it earlier 'wrap myself in shadows'. While its hard to explain how I do this, I can tell you the end results. My form blurs significantly, most of my color drains out, and I can hide myself in dark areas that really shouldn't be that hard to visually penetrate.

This done on a black street offers me a rather significant advantage.

I'm on the fire starter in a moment, a second later the fire starter is trying to breathe through slits in his throat. It fires off one last wreath of flames, before he falls. I recognize this one. He's the one that got away from the ambush.

The liquid fires ringing the square now provide enough illumination for the other to make out my blurry form. It's a mid-size insectoid First. Vaguely preying-mantis shaped, it lowers its stance on four legs, and wings spring out of its back.

Shit. If I let it move, it'll probably either have a wind oriented attack, or fly at extreme speeds. I move as fast as I can, but it's a close thing. It was launching itself into the air when I manifested chi claws that extended my reach just long enough to eviscerate the creatures abdomen. It flitters through the air crazily for a moment, before enough energy drains and it loses control to collide into a flame lit building.

I relax my stance for just a moment. Good the two of them are dead. I extend my senses to look for Setsuna, when my mistake manifests itself. As my senses expanded to five meters around me, I sensed the third member of the party. It can fly, and was dive bombing me from behind. I might have enough time to avoid a killing strike, but this is going to hurt. I prepare to move, when it happens.

A magical strike split the air, and slammed into the creature, evaporating portions of it in a gory explosion, the little pieces splattering over the wall behind me.

What the hell was that? I cross my fingers and hope that it just hadn't decided to attack the dive bombing First (I never even got a chance to see its physical shape) and turn around to see what had launched it.

My gaze takes in the boots, raises to the dark skirts, the colors indistinguishable in the surreal lighting, the bow flapping in the breeze, the heart tipped staff, and my heart freezes in my chest.

"Setsuna," I whisper slowly.

She shows no reaction physically, but I see her aura flinch slightly. She leaps down from the building I had put her on, her skirt flaring, her hair streaming out behind her.

I take a step back. Setsuna was a Sailor Scout. A member of the fanatical magic-girl vigilantes, that were responsible for the destruction of entire species. The Youmas, the Daimons, and more.

I can only imagine what my expression must have looked like, but this time Setsuna flinched physically as well.

"Ranma, I hope you can understand why I haven't told you about this..." she continues, but I don't hear her.

The implications of this strike me like a physical blow. She was a Sailor Scout. That must have been the position she spoke of that had limited her life. The coldness in my stomach that had almost disappeared returns, and brings allies in my chest. I've only seen five of the nine Scouts before tonight. That meant there were four left. If Setsuna was one of them...

Who were the other three? I have a sudden sick feeling in my stomach. There were three other women living with Setsuna...

I had been living, in all probability, with four women who would not hesitate to destroy me if they ever found out what I was. Wow, my life sucks. Good luck in bad luck that they despite my proximity, they hadn't discovered me.

"Ranma," Setsuna asks. "Please talk to me." I hear the desperation in her voice, and see her fear in her aura. I had been shaking my head, slowly at first but the movement was becoming faster and faster.

"..." I open my mouth, to tell her something, anything, and nothing gets out. I can't let them stop me. They might not know now, but they could find out at any time. I shudder to think what kind of clues I had given them all ready.

I cloak myself in shadows.

I cloak myself in shadows and flee into the night.

Behind me I hear Setsuna cry out, and I do my best to ignore it.

It was time, I realized. I had been procrastinating. Putting it off without even realizing it. I could move my body almost perfectly now. I had more than enough energy put aside for what I was planning. In fact, the less energy I had at this point, the better I would probably do.

It was time to finish what I had started.

It was time to kill He-Who-Remembers.

And all I can feel is the coldness in my chest.

---

I had been considering this for some time now, and had my course of action all planned out. In order to do this, I would have to open a very minor slit, in a portion with very few barrier points. The best place to do this was in a place where I had already destroyed all of the barrier points. I head back to Nerima. To the Tendo Dojo.

Once I would have run quickly, leaping from one roof to another, like a gazelle in the grass land.

I don't feel like leaping.

I walk. Step. Step. Step. Step.

The night around me is quiet and peaceful.

Step. Step. Step.

I would miss it.

Step. Step. Step.

The nights where I come from are never peaceful. Lightning rains from the sky, and clouds swirl, like auras, unendingly in the sky.

Step. Step. Step.

I think about what I'm going to do. I'm going to turn on my people. I'm going to try to strike a blow at the species that I belong to, a blow that could in all possibility destroy them.

Its happened before.

As I walk I remember what my father had told me long ago.

----

"The people hated us because we were better them." My father looked over the plain in front of us. I watch too, with the eyes of the innocent. "They hated us and feared us because of what we could do and what we represented."

"What does represented mean, daddy?" He stroked my fur with one slim claw, his chitinous armor rasping softly with the movement.

"Represented means what we stood for. What we were like," he said with the infinite patience of a parent that loves his child.

"And what did we stand for, daddy?"

His eyes glimmer, the reflection of the lightning around us giving him an eerie look. "We stood for what they could have been. If they had just had different parents, they might have been us. In a thousand years, we might have bred ourselves into them, and they could have been like us, but they struck out at us, and destroyed themselves."

---

I hadn't understood then. I hadn't realized that we had once been human too. But if you were to kill off everyone in the world that had blue eyes, there would be no more blue eyed people in the future. Like that, the potential in humans to grow had been weeded out. Weeded out and cast aside out of fear and ignorance.

I stand in front of the Dojo now. With a leap I am over it and in the back yard. This would be the best place to do it.

I grab a hold of the extra power I had been draining for the last week. It uncurls from where I had stored it and compressed it, and flares into my aura. I release the restraints I had enforced on myself, and now my demonic powers are in there as well. As I focus it into the figurative blade to cut the figurative cloth of this plain, I can't stop myself from thinking about Setsuna.

I'm going to miss her.

I really liked her.

A rip opens up in front of me. I step through, and welcome myself backhome.


	8. Chapter 8

Finishing what you start.

Chapter 7

Author's new notes. I'm proud of this chapter, all around. It could have been more polished, but there's a charm to it's roughness that I still find pleasing, nearly a decade after writing it. Credit where it is due, the confrontation between Ranma and He-Who-Remembers is loosely inspired from the confrontation between Raziel and Cain in the "Legacy of Cain" video game series.

I intend for this chapter to detail the battle between Ranma-Ran and He-Who-Remembers.

Ranma is not mine. Any reference to people from Ranma one half, or Sailor moon, well those people don't belong to me either. Hell, I live in poverty. This computer isn't mine either. I broke into some poor shmuck's house, and typed it while he was at work.

Really. I did.

Ozone fills the air, a heavy and oppressive stench, reminiscent of the smell of an exploded aerosol can. Rocks lay scattered about, twisted into weird and disconcerting shapes. Erosion had had no part in their creation. In this plain, all landmasses are carved out of bigger rocks by bolts of lightning that come streaking out of the dirt smear of the clouds. The earth itself stretches out twisted and oozed around the rocks like some kind of demented oriental rock garden's sand. In places some noxious chemical had oozed up through the ground, leaving slimy pits and sinkholes.

Home sweet home. I breath in and take a second to remember my life here.

I stop when all those memories involved my family and friends.

My family and friends who had been exterminated for the crime of being different.

My blood runs cold in my veins, and its all I can do to pull the power that I'm radiating back into me. I must remain undetected. No one must sense me.

Now is not the time, nor is here the place.

In this world there are no settlements, no towns, no cities. There is only one real building. The Manor of the Lord. A twisted citadel, where lightning can never strike, but circles like a dog held at bay by a fire. My destination.

Every journey begins with a single step. I always finish was I start.

Step. Step. Step.

It's time to end what I have begun.

---

I was excited, and I was scared. The Lord, He-Who-Remembers, had summoned me. I had no idea why. I hadn't done anything to warrant his personal attention or discipline. When I had started my journey to the Manor, I had been more excited than scared. The balance was quickly shifting.

I stand in front of the Gateway. There are very few who can pass these doors and come back alive. They were a monstrous set of carved wooden doors. Wood. I had heard of wood before, but I had always considered it a legend, like 'sun', or 'rain'. Amazing. I wonder what it feels like?

As one claw delicately traces a carved human screaming in pain, I hear the voice.

Enter.

Frightened, but unwilling to admit it even to myself, I enter.

---

I remember my first meeting with He-Who-Remembers. I remember how strong his aura was. It had been like an immense whirlpool. Everything around him had been sucked inexorably into him. I had to fight just to stay alive in his presence, and the only reason I had managed to do so was that the twist of my aura was anathema to his. It had stayed away from me, shrinking like a dog from a stick.

I hadn't realized that until I had decided to kill Him, all these years later.

The words that He had spoken to me were blurred in my mind. He had been so much stronger than me, that I can't even remember their sound. Were they loud, or soft? Smooth or gravely? All I can remember is the intent of the words driven into me. It was like communication through aura, taken to an immense scale.

Around me the terrain begins to lift up in a gentle hill. The lightning strikes happen with greater and greater frequency as I climb. The stones, chipped and scorched as they are, bare the brunt of these attacks with strength. I don't know why these stones are different from the other stones that litter our world, but where other rocks shatter, these merely absorb the heat, and glow with an eldritch menace. As I clear the rim of the hill I was climbing, I see the Manor.

The hill itself is hollowed out, like the center of some long dead volcano, or the crater of a meteor strike. At the bottom of the indentation lies the Manor, a twisted and brooding edifice. Within lays anywhere from a dozen to a hundred Firsts, and the Second guards. Once I would have considered it impenetrable, but now I see otherwise. Years of training have made me sharp, where as years of redundancy had made the guards dull. They would never expect an assault, and would not be able to significantly muster even if the alarm is sounded.

I'm about to change back into my original form, when suddenly all I can feel is disgust for it. For what it represents.

My race, for we long ago stopped considering ourselves human, had been hated and thrown aside because we were different. You would think that this would have made us more tolerant, more able to understand and care for people who aren't like ourselves, but instead we turn upon ourselves. Intolerance, hatred, and genocide.

I would rather finish this as a human. The way I started this endeavor. The way my friends are. The way Setsuna is.

I cloak myself in shadow, and start my descent.

I begin a fast pace, bent nearly parallel to the steep earth, face down and picking up speed as I run. By the time I'm halfway down the wind is tearing at me, buffeting me like a physical assault. I ignore it, and my descent continues in silence.

The ground levels up and I am almost upon the Manor. A hundred yards away. Seventy five. I can make out the shapes of the guards circling the wall. Fifty yards away. Twenty five. My aura is masked, my outline undetectable in the perpetual dusk of our world. Twenty yards away. Fifteen. I leap at ten yards, and sail through the air. Lightning cracks through the air, masking the whistle and snap the wind rings from my clothes. I clear the walls around the Manor, and the guards circling it.

I alight in one of the empty window frames, my silhouette momentarily outlined to all who look out. A First sees me, and draws itself up imperviously to denounce me. Just like Kuno. Unlike Kuno, I tear its throat out before it has a chance to speak, and leave its body to dissolve on its own as I speed through the hallways. Now is not the time to stand still.

I've only been in the Manor once before, but I have no worry about being lost. The Manor was designed in the shape of a wheel. The spokes radiate outward from the inner hallway, and the inner hallway moves in a circle around the inner sanctum. There is only one entrance to the chamber that holds He-Who-Remembers. The gateway. Various other hallways snake around the Manor, but like a spider's web they lay connected to the spokes that lead towards the inner hallway.

I lay in one of the outer circling hallways, but either direction will take me to a spokes, so I dart to the right upon entering, and continue at a rapid pace around towards a spokes. Occasionally a First would lay in front of me as I ran, and I would hop over it move quickly on. Too many dead this early on would result in an alarm.

A minute into my run, I come across one of the spokes. Now the spokes all lead in, but they are central avenues through the Manor, so they are well traveled. I avoid the traffic by clinging to the ceiling and crawling inwards. Sometimes I would have to dodge a flying First, or another wall-crawler, but most prefer to walk, and wouldn't have seen me even if they had looked up.

Noting impedes my progress, and after a brief interlude, I reach the inner hallway of the Manor.

The inner hallway is deserted, as most First prefer not to come to close to the Lord. His aura can be felt even through the walls that surround his sanctum, like a ephemeral whirlpool. I can feel it, but it shies away from my Mark of Cain. The mark that left me and the race of my race as outcasts. The mark that brought about our extermination. My aura.

I abandon stealth dropping to the floor, and un-wrap myself from the dark. It might be petty, and overly dramatic, but I'm in a foul mood, and would just end up destroying anything that got in my way at this point.

Step. Step. Step. And there it is. The gateway. The last time I stood before this, I had been so very afraid. Now I feel nothing but coldness. Before a supplicant. Now an executioner.

I shatter the gateway with my fist, and enter to confront the Lord, He-Who-Remembers.

Time to finish this.

---

Let me take a moment to tell you about He-Who-Remembers.

He is old. Old beyond measure. Old beyond belief. And he never forgets. He was there when our kind was first distinguishing themselves from normal humans. He was there when humans turned on us. He lived through the ages of upheaval and strife in our world, and came out on top. He is immensely powerful, wise, and experienced. He is the landmark of our civilization.

He has a lot of tricks, like my shadow trick only difference. His prominent trick is this: to absorb the auras of creatures around him, and make their energies his own. Not like I absorb life energy. He actually sucks the auras out of anything, and makes it apart of him. When this happens, he gains there strengths, their possibilities, their memories.

And he remembers them all.

"Ran," His voice whispers. The inner sanctum is a large coliseum like structure. Open to the air, and with the floors slowly descending towards the center. In the center He sits.

"I'm honored you remember me," I tell him dryly. His aura pulls at me, like I remember, but now I am much stronger than I was the first time I was here. I resist its pull easily.

"I remember the way you stood before me. How you were eager to serve me. How you were awed by my power. Things have changed," he whispers. His voice comes from the center of the sanctum. A deep pit lays there. None of the lights from the edges of the room manage to penetrate the gloom there. "I remember..." He trails off.

Here I am. I stand before the one who was responsible for the destruction of my kind. The Seconds and the Firsts would never had attempted it without His orders. I should feel something. All I can feel is nothing.

"Why did you have them killed?" My voice is empty, and weak.

"Because I can remember." The voice stirs, and a shape in the shadows slowly edges towards the light.

"Because you can remember?! What could you possibly remember to redeem this unconsciousable act? What could possibly excuse the cleansing?" My voice cracks, and I rediscover the rage that had brought me here.

He-Who-Remembers moves out of the shadows. It is all I can do to refrain from drawing back in revulsion.

He is large and gelatinous. The vaguely humanoid shape only makes his actual composition all the more revolting. If He had ever had a different shape, it had been lost with time. I would like to say that He oozed petroleum oil, but it is more like He was created out of oil. Had He been born this way, or was this the end result of eons of draining other creatures to enhance His power, only He could possibly know.

"I can remember, and what can be remembered can be learned from. I knew the moment that I saw you that you would end up here, in front of me, and would try to kill me. It has happened before, and it will happen again. It is only a matter of time. All the signs are there, if you only look for them." I can't even begin to describe how He talked. To form coherent speech with a body like that...

As He moves forward, I move towards him as well.

"I refuse to believe that. How could you possibly know what I would do, what would happen to me. There were thousands of things that could have happened-"

He cuts me off. "-and I have seen them all. You know I am old, you rationalize it, but you can't truly begin to comprehend just how much I have seen. If you just care to look, there is so much that can be learned from watching others, and I have been looking for a very long time."

The distance between us shrinks as I respond. "I refuse to believe that. Your experience does not make you all-knowing. If anything, it only makes you inflexible. And that which can't bend..."

"That which can not bend, forces others to move." The distance between us is almost non-existent. I can't even begin to imagine what He-Who- Remembers was thinking about. Perhaps He was recalling some long distant confrontation with another. I know precisely what I'm thinking of.

He-Who-Remembers reaches out to embrace me. As I slide into His body, penetrating his disgusting gelatinous mass, His aura swirling in to engulf mine, all I can picture is two serious red eyes, framed by a swirl of green hair.

As He-Who-Remembers begins to absorb me completely, I reach into me, and all the energy I had left from my week of draining flairs into my aura. It explodes outwards, tearing into the center of He-Who-Remembers aura. I can feel His surprise, as eddies from the interaction of our two energies spring out, like dust devils before a storm. I can feel His surprise and shock, perhaps at the suddenness of this technique, perhaps in surprise at the strangeness of my move, even as He can feel the name of this technique whispered in the back of my mind.

Imperial Dragon Ascension Blast.

The world around me rips itself apart with the fury of the technique. The aura of the planet itself is momentarily breached by mine, and the planet moves to counter it, swiftly and violently. A whirlwind of catastrophic proportions erupts around the two of us. It tears into the immense aura of He-Who-Remembers, and tugs even more so at mine. I had experience with this technique, and I knew how to handle it, how to withdraw into myself, and allow it to pass.

He-Who-Remembers doesn't. His form, both ethereal and corporeal begins to dissolve.

But one does not live as long as He-Who-Remembers without picking up a few tricks. As He begins to dissolve, his aura begins to seek shelter in the nearest unaffected thing.

Me.

It is all I could do not to scream as it began to soak into me. Power and memories, both of which belonging to the Lord began to saturate my being. I could remember the grass beneath my feet, on a earth of incalculable antiquity. I could feel the natural magic lines of the earth twisting against me. I could feel my...

NO! I am not He-Who-Remembers. I want neither his memories nor his powers. I want to be myself, live as I live, to fight as I fight, to be as I am. I fight back against His invasion into my psyche. I counter his memories with my own. Genma's training, Akane's mallet, Kasumi's cooking, and more

But it isn't enough. For every memory I pull up in defense, a thousand more pull up on the offense. He-Who-Remembered had been right. I hadn't been prepared for the sheer length of time He had really lived, how much he had felt. They come crushing down on me, like an ocean I was drowning in. Desperately I cling to the final memories.

Michiru's laugh, Haruka's gruff humor, Hotaru's fragile innocents. My time with Michiru, Haruka, and Hotaru. The happiest days of my life. They had been so brief, yet I treasured them above all things. I treasured those memories more than He-Who-Remembers ever treasured any of his.

The internal battle for dominance begins to waiver. I'm no longer being routed aside like a tree before a jokulhaups. The battle grind to a shrieking stop, neither side gaining dominance of advantage.

Around me the hurricane that was my technique shrieks on.

Though the battle is internal, I begin to feel an immense strain on my entire body. Usually by now I would have perform the final pulse in my aura that would signal to the planet that the invasion was withdrawing, but I couldn't. If I had spared even a moment of my attention, I would be over run. I had to win this battle, to defeat Him, to avenge my people, to save myself. I had to stay alive. I had to see Setsuna again.

Setsuna. All my memories of her rush forward. I can remember a flutter of her eyelashes, the fall of her hair down her shoulder, her wet cinnamon skin twinkling in the light.

Suddenly He-Who-Remembers' memories are gone, and I am myself again.

I finish off the technique, and collapse, the strain tearing my senses from me in a swift and merciful moment of oblivion.

---

After an indiscernible about of time, I awaken. It is all I can do. My body aches with an abandon it rarely gives into. Abused muscles and lacerated skin fills my brain for a moment before I shunt them aside. Sometime during my unconsciousness, I had lost control of my form, and now I lay in my original shape. There is nothing I can do about it. I remain where I lay, and wait for enough energy to come to me before I can stand.

It happens quickly. Too quickly. Within a minute of waking up I have enough strength to shift back to human form. My body does so willingly, but my clothes are in less than ideal condition. Minutes after that I have enough energy to heal myself and raise. That should have been the outer limits of my power, and left me exhausted for days. Instead energy just keeps coming to me. My aura begins to swirl stronger with the extra force.

What's happening to me?

Alright, think. What could have happened to change me in such a fashion. Duh, my fight with He-Who-Remembers (Maybe I should change his name to He-Who-Remembered now?). What happened in that fight?

It strikes me then. He-Who-Remembered had tried to invade my body and aura. I had fought off his memories, but I hadn't really paid attention to what happened to his excess power. I must have absorbed it. That meant that I had now reached a much higher power level.

Let me take a second to clarify something. I might have mentioned earlier that absorbing human energy only brought a temporary burst of power. It is completely different when you avoid the actual aura of someone else. While energy is a minor thing, someone's aura is much more serious. As in permanent. That's why He-Who-Remembered had such a strong aura. From millennia of draining the auras out of others. And I had just drained his.

But how much power had I acquired? The recovery rate is directly proportional to the amount of maximum energy. If I was gaining energy this fast...

Dear lords above and below. If I was absorbing energy this fast I must be at least as strong as the Lord used to be.

I break from my thoughts suddenly. Now was not the time to be thinking about this. I look around to take stock of my situation, and gawk like a country yokel. Where there had once been the Manor, there was only blasted rubble.

Where there had once been a crater like cliff, there was now nothing but a broken plane of dirt and rock. I don't think I have moved since I collapsed, but that could only mean that it was my attack that caused this.

I extend my senses, and they travel far beyond there one time limit of a half a mile. For three miles in any direction, all I can feel is my own energy, steadily swelling.

Well. At least I don't have to fight my way out. Now, to get back to the plain I had spent the last decade of my life at. I reach for my energy and try to cut a hole to my destination.

I come across another unpleasant surprise. With my power level so rapidly increasing, it was becoming harder to fit through the barrier. Gaps that were once more than wide enough for me are rapidly becoming too small for me to fit through. Another half hour and I would be stuck here, in all probability permanently.

I don't want to be stuck here with the people responsible for the elimination of my race. I don't know how they would react to the source of their prejudice suddenly being powerful enough to be their god, but I can't imagine it would be good.

I slip through the barrier, feeling a nasty psychic back lash from the cords of power designed to keep me from doing what I had just done.

---

Let me take another moment to explain something to you. Distance is not relative. What I mean by this is that our two plains are not overlapping each other at any specific geographic point. Rather, the two are constantly shifting around each other. Like to globes occupying the same space, but spinning in different directions. The location in one plain is not in the same place over the second plain at any given time. It is a very random event. The only way to stabilize this phenomenon is through the creation of portals. This required a lot more energy then I was able to expend at the moment, and a lot more time than I could spare.

And so it was that I braced myself for anything when I stepped back onto the green earth.

I was prepared for some harsh climate, somewhere a thousand meters under water, in the center of a bathhouse filled with man hating Amazonians. Anything except for what I got. I stepped out into the middle of an empty sidewalk in Juuban. Nothing tried to kill me, no one saw me and ran away screaming of the apocalypse or angels of death. The only thing that greeted me was peace and quiet.

It was almost scary.

I sigh out in relief. Well. I was back on the planet I wanted to be on and human looking, albeit dressed shaggily. I took a moment to regard my aura. It was rapidly expanding in both size and strength. It still rotated in the opposite direction of the rest of the universe, but I could live with that. I tried to control it, but I just wasn't used to dealing with that kind of energy, especially not in respect to my own aura.

After a minute of trying, I shrugged it off. Truth be told, I was too elated to really concentrate on my task. I had done it. I had stopped the invasion, killed He-Who-Remembered, and came out alive. After living through odds like that, and finishing it to boot, what could possibly go wrong now?

I stroll down the sidewalk, whistling a merry tune. It was over. Now what? I could take a few months off. Go and visit some Shinto shrines maybe, expand my life experience. Tour Europe or something. I could...

I could go see how Setsuna and the others are doing. I smile, albeit a little grimly. I could go see them, and explain some things. I could explain what I am, and why I ran. I could tell them what I had been doing. I could come clean with them. That's what I could do.

My course decided, I turn north and begin my course of action. Until I pass a fast food ramen booth.

Maybe I could celebrate a bit first.

"Hey, hey," I toss out as I duck under the little sign in front of the booth. "Give me the best ramen you got here."

The vender gets to work on my order, while eyeing me curiously. "You look like you've seen hell, man," he tells me, taking in my tattered clothes, and the dirt smeared all over my body.

I grin at him exuberantly. I had earned it. "I just lived through hell, and now I'm going to the fires."

"Ahh," he tells me, and matches my grin. "Women problems." I like this guy. When he gives me my ramen-to-go, I pay him and leave him a ten dollar tip. Some of the bills are a bit scorched, but he takes them good naturedly.

As I walk along, sipping soup and slurping noodles, I reflect on my life for a moment. It was great to be alive.

"It's over here," a voice shouts, and upon hearing it, an icy chill rolls through my spine. A premonition. A very strong premonition. A very bad one, as well. That voice belongs to Sailor Mercury.

I look over my shoulder as the body to match the voice jumps over a building, noodles hanging forgotten from my mouth, followed closely by the other four Scouts that usually shows up when she's around. Sailor Jupiter is the first to notice me.

"Ranma," she cries out. "Good thing we ran into you. We're picking up like this huge evil power. We'll need all the help we can get..."

My blood turns to ice in my veins. My aura. It had expanded to cover most of this block, and the one beyond it. They would pick it up and know that its similar to the auras of the others of my species they had fought. I have a sudden sinking feeling as to what my premonition means.

Jupiter's entreaty is cut off when Mercury looks up from her computer, and right at me. Her jaw drops open. "I-its him!" She points right at me. I toss my ramen to the side, and finish slurping the noodles in my mouth. "He's the source!"

Mars' eyes narrow. "That must be why he's so strong," she declares. Without wasting another word, she launches an attack at me. It speeds towards me, but with my new enhanced power and plenty of warning it's a matter of child's play to sidestep it.

"But he's always helped us," Venus declares. Her and Jupiter look shocked, while Moon was confused, and Mercury remained buried in her computer, desperately sorting through her information and giving me an occasional look over the top of her screen. "He's like Tuxedo Mask!"

Mars' shouts an answer as she leaps into attack me. "Well he's got enough dark power to destroy Tokyo now. Who knows what happened! We have to stop him."

I match her pathetic assault easily. She was an experienced fighter, but her technique was untrained and easily handled by my own. Its all I can do not to cry. I had saved the world, and now I was going to be killed by high-schoolers in short skirts. They must have sensed my aura the moment I returned to this plain. They gathered together, and panicked due to its size. Hell, its size was panicking even me. My aura just kept growing. It was too late to try to stop it now, but I curse myself for not trying harder earlier.

"I know," Moon suddenly declares, her ridiculous blonde hair flapping. "Maybe he's possessed! Like Tuxedo Mask and Saturn were those times!" A ridiculous look of understanding crosses Jupiter's and Venus' face. Oh no. They both assume statuesque poses and launch energy and lightning at me. I dodge by gaining the roof, leaving Mars to duck to the ground with an undignified squawk.

"Wait," I shout. I got to stop this before I get killed. "You're making a big mistake!" My only response is the attacks of Jupiter and Mars combining to create one hell of an offensive strike. I move but the building around me can't escape, and where there once had been a roof is now a creative sky light.

And then it happened. I had seen Moon's attack before. I knew it was powerful, but I had always thought that it took a ridiculous amount of time to fire off. I had been certain that if it had been leveled at me I could have escaped. I find out the truth now.

Even as Moon begins the opening of her attack, the ambient magic around me begins to twist. Bounds of power, invisible even to my aural sight, lace out, catching me in a inescapable grip. My body is stretched straight and held up, unable to resist the force of her spell.

Behind I hear Mercury shout, "No wait!" Behind her I can see four more scouts approaching rapidly. I can make out the face of Pluto, of Setsuna. Gone from her expression is the haughty coolness. She looks like she is screaming something, but I can't make it out as my ears become full of the roar of Moons attack. I see Setsuna's eyes locked on my face, and I summon my energy.

"I love you," I mouth, unable to fully vocalize the words. Moons attack rushes towards me...

---

---

Mercury's computer beeps, and Mercury's eyes widen when she sees what her scans had picked up. She lifts her head up just in time to see Moon finishing her attack, the power racing towards Ranma. "No," she screams, knowing that its to late even as the words leave her mouth. "Wait!"

Moon's attack strikes home, and the power that had surrounded Ranma vanishes from existence. Moon prepares a victory pose, and a speech to the now cleansed Ranma, but stops when her attack clears, and all that remains of the man in front of them is a swirl of dirt. A momentary dust devil that fades out of existence in a second.

"W-what happened?" Moon asked, confused by Ranma's disappearance.

"Ranma wasn't possessed. My scan reports that he had always had that power. It was the strange anomaly I had picked up when I first scanned him, only much stronger," Mercury whispers.

"You mean, he wasn't possessed?" Moon asked stupidly. Jupiter and Venus look confused, with Mars close behind.

"No. He wasn't."

"Then what was he doing with all that power?" Mars snapped peevishly.

"He was one of those creatures we had been fighting," Mercury answered. "He had just been keeping his power carefully hidden."

"Wait a second. Then what happened to him?" Moon was now thoroughly puzzled by these proceedings.

"He's... He's..." Mercury can't seem to get the words out. This was so much different from what they had always had to deal with before.

"He's dead," a quiet voice cut through the five's growing horror. They spin, and find the Outer Scouts allayed behind them. Pluto stood in the center, an unreadable look on her face, with Neptune and Uranus standing to one side, and Uranus' fist clenched tight. Saturn stood behind, as quiet as the planet whose name she bore.

"Y-you mean I killed him?" Moon stuttered. "But that can't be right. He's been helping us. That means he was a good guy. I can't kill good guys."

"He told me once," Saturn broke her silence. "He told me once that ever since he had been very young, he had been hated and scorned by others around him. Hated because of a difference in his, he called it his 'aura'. I didn't think at the moment, but in order for someone to make fun of your aura, they have to be able to see it. Normal people can't see them, but I think those creatures we had been fighting could. That means he must have grown up somewhere where everyone could see his aura. He must have been one of those creatures." Saturn's face is devoid of expression, but her eyes glimmered with repressed tears.

"But why was he fighting against his own kind?" Mars demanded, hiding her own growing horror over what they just had done. Had they really just killed an ally? She looked back over the fight in her mind, and only now recalled the words he had yelled before he had been attacked. 'You're making a big mistake.'

"The only way we could know that," Neptune said, her voice like ice. "Would have been by asking."

No one had anything to say to that.

Pluto said nothing, but began to shake. She dropped to one knee, her arms wrapped around her waist, her head bowed, her hair masking her face, and her tears were all the more terrible because of the complete silence in which they were shed.

Authors note, A Jokulhaups is an actual natural disaster. It involves an ice flow high on a mountain getting pushed over a hot spring. The hot spring melts the bottom of the flow, and the end result rushes down the mountain. It involves thousands of gallons of falling water mixed in with jagged pieces of ice. It can tear up trees, smash rocks, and destroy cities. I am not making this up.

I hope you like the end. Come back for the coda of "Finishing what you start."


	9. Chapter 9

Finishing what you start.

Author's new note. I'm giving some serious thought to writing a short follow up to Finishing, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate. Let me know in reviews if you think I should let it stand, or give something new to all my long time fans.

Coda.

Let me see if I can remember enough from my old piano lessons to sum up what a coda is. In a piece with a coda, you play to the end of the designated segment of music. At the end you return to a symbol somewhere in the previous music. From there you play to another symbol. This takes you to the coda. The coda is the end of music, the conclusion.

I don't own these people.

As the interplanetary ship prepares for its final approach, I take a moment to reflect how things change. Things were so different from the days of my youth, that crazy and innocent time of my life that I sometimes look back on sadly. It had been so perfect. And then it had ended.

Just like everything that starts, it had ended.

I wonder if that's why I'm doing what I am doing now. I stretch as much as the tiny third class seats on the flight allow me to. As much as I can, plastered to the window next to my seat thanks to the enormously fat man next to me. I try not to let the stink from his unwashed plaid business suit overcome me. I try not to allow his wheezy and whining voice to drive me to suicide, but sometimes its just so hard.

He had had eight hours to work through his entire life, telling me everything from where he had been born to what his job was to the stereotypical displaying of his children's photos. I fell asleep two hours into it, and woke up two hours later to discover he hadn't even noticed.

"What about yourself? What are you doing on Pluto?" he asks. I hope he's not expecting to much, as there's only a couple of minutes left of the flight.

"Vacationing," I tell him, and the fatty laughs. I think he had told me his name, but I really hadn't cared enough to pay attention.

"Nobody vacations on Pluto," he chortles stupidly. "It's as cold an inhospitable as the woman who rules it. Now Venus. There's a vacation. Let me tell you..." He trails of slightly at the very cold look I was giving him. "Sorry," he mutters.

"A long time ago, I knew someone on who came from Pluto. We were forced to part under extreme circumstances, I've never forgotten her." I stop talking.

"And now you want closure?" He pats me on the back. "Listen. It'll work out. These things always do."

Patronizing ass. But he was right. It'll work out now, one way or another.

---

I groan as I force myself into a sitting position. Ouch. The beating I took from that ambush from the three Firsts didn't even hold a candle to the un-godly pain that's coursing through me right now. That dunce Moon really packs a punch. Must be some kind of magical idiot savant. I had just barely managed to escape.

The barrier had been designed to keep my kind out of that plain. The barrier was still active, though weaker than once it was, thanks to my effort. It had been an act of desperation to invoke it, and have it drag me back into this hell-hole before Moon's full power came to bare on me. It had worked, though just barely. I also hadn't been prepared for the back lash that it would cause. Ouch.

Well. I guess that answers that question. You can't ever go back home. You can only hurt the ones you love. Ect. Ect.

I collapse back down on the ground. I hope no one finds me. That would be bad. My eyes close, and I sleep again...

"Do you have anything to declare, sir?" the customs agent asks me. I'm an extraordinarily powerful semi-demonic creature? An abhorrent pustule on the side of the multiverse?

"I have nothing to declare. I don't even have any luggage," I tell her. She nods her head, and checks something off on her list. I can only imagine what she's thinking when she looks at me. Clothing has become a flashy thing, full of synthetic plastics, and sharp angled shapes sown into rigid clothing. I'm wearing the Chinese shirt, and the black tied off pants I wore all those years ago. Slippers adorn my feet, and my hair is tied up in a pigtail that hangs down from my neck, and coils around my neck and shoulders. I haven't cut it in over two centuries. Even then, it had been burnt off in battle, on the rims of the galaxy. Before that it had been a hundred and fifty years since my last cut. I like it long. It's like a tail, and since I haven't used my original form in so long...

I digress.

"Purpose and length of your intended stay?"

"Business, and I don't know. It's the nature of my business to be a little unpredictable." I could be leaving the next day, or I could be dead. Who knows?

"Enjoy your stay on Pluto," the customs agent smiles at me. She had somehow managed to undue the top button of her uniform, and was leaning forward, a shy look on her face.

I ignore her advances, and leave without a word. Her aura shines disappointed for a moment, and then she's back to work. I smile slightly as she redoes her button when she talks to the fat man that had been my flight mate.

---

I level unholy destruction at the mass gathered before me, and sigh slightly at the nature of my problem.

The Firsts and Seconds had discovered that I had the power of the former Lord. They had been revolted, disgusted that a Third could rise to such prominence. They had decided to remedy this, by destroying me.

They had come like a wave. And like a wave against a cliff, they had been broken and beaten back. Only to come again, to meet the same fate. A cliff would be worn away eventually, would collapse under the relentless assault.

I am not a cliff.

I have done this for over two centuries now. I have discovered countless 'tricks', and my skills only increase with practice.

Once the lord of this realm had been called He-Who-Remembers. When I killed him, and drove off assault after assault upon my person, my onetime peers had given me a title. He-Who-Brings-Oblivion.

I don't even really mind. Its something to keep my mind on. Something to keep my mind off of...

"If you'll look to the right, you will see the entrance to the grand ball room. It is over one hundred yards in length, and fifty yards up overhead. It was constructed..." the tour guide rambles one, giving pointless statistics involving the construction and carrying capacity of the structure we were entering.

I don't bother to pay attention. I took the tour of this building for the explicit purpose of discovering the lay out of the palace. I will need to know it for later.

"Now, to the left we have the entrance to the private wing of the palace. It occupies one story of the palace, and has eight rooms. All the other palaces in the Kingdom have private wings nearly three times this size. However, since out queen spends the majority of her time guarding the Gates of Time, Queen Pluto has limited her suite to a much more manageable level." The tour guide tries to impress us with the frugality of her queen, and several of the tourists in the group flash cameras at the doors.

I raise my hand. The tour guide inclines her head at me over the others. "Yes sir?"

"How often can the queen be found in her quarters?" I ask, not caring how the question sounds. I could have been much more subtle, but I truly doubt it'll ever matter.

"Normally the queen stays here only sporadically, without warning to the caretakers of her castle. However, due to the royal ball scheduled on the Moon tomorrow," no one questions which moon the ball was taking place on, "we have been informed that Queen Pluto will be staying the night before hand, so that she can be properly prepared for tomorrows event." It goes without saying that Pluto will only be at the ball as long as manners require. The entire Kingdom knows that she's a recluse, and prefers to avoid crowds.

"Thank you," I tell the tour guide politely, and she smiles at me before she continues her tour.

Too many women on Pluto seem eager for action. I guess everyone needs something to do on cold nights. I already have my nocturnal activity planned, so I pretend ignorance to her attention. I had found out what I wanted to know.

---

Once upon a time, I would have ran quickly over the palace grounds, darting from shadow to shadow to avoid detection. But time has taught me well. The shadows are so closely wrapped around me, that the only possible detection would be physical contact, or a spotlight aimed directly at me. Sure, by now I knew how to bend light around me, effectively making me invisible, or shape the pigments in my skin like a chameleon, but I feel more comfortable in the shadows. I had spent so much time in the shadows, as I had spent so much time as a human, that the two are second nature to me.

I leave the grounds, and enter the palace proper. My soft slippers whisper on the stone, a sound so slight that most would think it their imagination. I pass two guards, all diligent in their patrols, without notice. For the briefest moment, I am tempted to tape a 'kick me' sign on their backs, but my mood is too dark to maintain those thoughts for long. I pass through the enormous ballroom. It has never been used. I checked the records. In the entire millennium since it had been constructed, there has never been anything more than maids and tourists through these doors.

As I whisper my way through the dark, I can feel the tightness in my belly grow. I had been to all the palaces. From the inners, to the outers. I have toured them all. This was the final one, and the only one to be graced with my late night visit. After I had finished this one, I could return to the frontier. The frontier is enormous, and dangerous. Periodic invasions, and a good distance from the arm of the law has made the places next to lawless. I could find work there easily, disappear into the mass of people.

There was only one reason I hadn't yet. I have to finish what I started, all those centuries ago.

I push open the doors to the private floor. A grand flight of stairs, carpeted in a deep green, and wide enough for three men to walk abreast up greets me. As I mount the stairs, each step brings me another question.

Why am I doing this? Hadn't she proven what she wanted? Was it worth death to come back? Will I follow through with this? Did I really want to end it?

No answers follow my ascension of those stairs. Maybe they would be there when I descended them next.

The floor I have gained is what you would expect from the living quarters of a queen. Plush carpets, golden and crystalline statues adorning the corridor, shimmering chandeliers. I didn't really think that Setsuna would have something like this. It must have been the builders idea of a necessity to royal dignity. Eight doors adorn the sides of the hallway, but I have no need to check them. I can feel her aura, and already knew which door she was behind. I cross to the end of the hall, and push open the door. It slides open easily, on well oiled hinges.

I enter.

Beyond lays the royal bed chamber. Lacy sheets hang from the ceiling, drifting from place to place, creating almost a maze of veils. I brush by and under them, approaching the center of the room, and the bed that was there. The bed is enormous. Big enough for three or four people, with silky pillows piled high on top of it. Next to one corner is a small bedside table stand. Next to the stand is a sleeping body, curled into almost a ball, wrapped in sheets, and dwarfed by the pillows on the bed. The body barely seems to take up a tenth of the bed. There she was.

Suddenly, I can't seem to move. It has been over a thousand years since the last time I had seen her, I had been near her. Her aura is similar, yet different. Aged and refined. I force myself to take the steps to get across the distance between us. My throat is dry, and my palms sweaty.

She hasn't changed a bit. I look down on her, and I can't even begin to describe my feelings. Her green hair lays fanned out on the pillow next to her, her cinnamon skin contrasted by the pale sheets. Her eyes are closed, but I can still imagine the shade of her crimson eyes. One hand pokes out of the sheets, curled cutely, barely brushing her cheek. My breath catches in my throat.

"Beautiful," I whisper, the word a breath of air that barely crosses my lips. I look down at the table next to her, and see a lone picture frame there. Curious as to what she keeps a picture of that's so important she practically sleeps next to it. I wipe one sweaty palm on my pants, and carefully so as not to wake her, I pick it up and turn it so I can see.

My heart skips a beat. No. Its not possible.

The picture contains Setsuna and myself, dressed up elegantly, though me in bandages, looking embarrassed. I can remember when it was taken. The second night of our week of dating. Haruka and Michiru had insisted on it, though Setsuna had given them looks that would have killed lesser women. Hotaru had been a bit jealous of the attention I was giving Setsuna, but even she had seemed to support me and Setsuna's partnership. This picture must be over a thousand years old. I can't even begin to imagine how she had kept it so bright and new.

The frame slips from my fingers, and I fall to my knees besides Setsuna's bed. What could this mean? I had lived the last thousand years with the memory of the Scouts trying to kill me. I couldn't really blame them, as they had been fighting off an invasion by my kindred, so it would be natural for them to try to kill me as well.

I start to shake. I can't do it. I had come here for, as the fat man on the plane had said, closure. I had been prepared to tell the sleeping Setsuna that I love her, and still loved her after all these years no matter how she felt about it. I had come to say my final goodbyes, and promise never to darken her door again. I had come to finish what I had started.

And now I couldn't. I didn't ever want to end this. I wanted to be with her for eternity and a day.

My hand reaches out, shaking horribly. With an enormous effort, I steady it. As it slowly comes closer and closer to the sleeping Setsuna, my breath becomes more and more shallow.

With a caress as light as a breeze, my fingers brush the skin of her cheek. A tears leave trails down my cheek and hit my leg. I hadn't even realized I was crying.

She stirs slightly in her sleep, and I withdraw my hand.

It can't end like this. I stand up, and turn to leave. I would rather continue with this bitter sweet forbidden love for an eternity.

As I brush past the lacy curtains, I hear a stirring on the bed. I freeze as a commanding voice breaks the silence. "Stop where you are."

Setsuna had woken up. I freeze. Should I escape? Should I flee into the night? No. I will stay, and take what comes. I straighten up, and wait.

"Turn around slowly, and identify yourself." I can only admire her coolness. Like the time when she had exited the bath and found me waiting, she was so calm with a stranger in her bedchambers so late at night. With the tightness of worry dissolving into butterflies in my stomach, I turn.

She had risen from her slumber and now sat upright, calmly holding her blankets around her chest. Her aura radiates a mixture of anger over my invasion, and confidence in her ability to handle whatever it was that was going to happen.

"Hello, Setsuna," I whisper, afraid of my voice breaking if I speak any louder. Her crimson eyes widen, and she inhales.

I had changed over the years. I had matured, getting taller and wider, but my features had remained the same. My pig tail was larger than it once was, but my clothing still similar.

"Ranma?" she whispers. I can only nod my head. She begins to shake, and her posture slumps. She leans over her legs, and I hear a muffled sob. "No," she forces out. "No. This is another dream. You're not here."

"A dream?" I ask. I have no idea how to react, but it hurts to see her like this. I take a step towards her.

"Another dream. You'll say you love me, and that I'll never be alone again. Then I'll wake up, like I always do," she sobs. I can't stop myself. I am beside her, and holding her. She wraps her arms around me and continues to cry. "Or you'll tell me that I killed you, and that you hate me. I can never tell which is worse."

I'm reminded of a similar situation I had had with Hotaru once, all those years ago.

I don't tell her either of those things. Instead, I begin to talk to her. "A long time ago, I had been chosen by He-Who-Remembered to aid in the destruction of a barrier that kept the rest of my kind in check. I served faithfully for ten years, and when I returned, I discovered that all my family and friends had been destroyed. A merciless genocide. I swore revenge." My words seem to be calming her. She has stopped shaking, but she still desperately clings to me. "I set out without a home or a plan. While I was searching for my vengeance, I was taken in by four women. Those were the happiest days of my life. The time I spent with them was like a dream. Especially with one in particular. I couldn't tell them that my real name wasn't Ranma, that I wasn't even human. Who knows what they might have done? I had hoped that they would never find out. It wasn't to be..." I trail off. A tear rolls down my cheek, and lands on Setsuna's beautiful green hair. The viridian wave absorbs the moisture.

I continue after a moment. "I discovered that all four of the women I had been staying with were powerful beings, who had rooted out and hunted invaders before. I panicked. I couldn't let them catch me. Not till I had had my revenge. I fled. After I had killed the one who had betrayed me, I returned. I was going to the house of the women that had meant so much to me. To explain, tell them what I was. I never made it."

"How?" Setsuna whispers. She releases me and sits up. She moves away from me so that she can face me, still wrapped in the silk sheets of her bed. I sit on the edge, with my head bowed under the memories. "How did you survive? We had seen Moon's attack strike you. We had thought you were dead." Her voice has no expression, but her aura is once again maddeningly incomprehensible.

"I fled. I returned to the world that I had been born on. By then, my power had grown so great that I couldn't return, not with the barrier that kept my race imprisoned for so long still intact. I had to fight off my kin, who were maddened with hatred for me. It was centuries before I could even begin to work on breaking the barrier, and centuries after that before I could finally return to this world. By then so much had changed. The one time vigilantes had become princess, and I was still a demonic thing. A creature they had once tried to destroy. I was certain that they would never accept me. Finally, I decided that it was time to end it."

"Is that why you're here?" Setsuna asked calmly. Her aura swirled even faster. "Are you here to end it?"

"No," I whisper. "I had came here to say goodbye, but I can't." I look her in the eyes. Her beautiful eyes. "We were only together for a couple of weeks, back then. Not even a month. But I fell in love with you. I've never fallen out. I started something with you all those years ago. Something I don't ever want to finish."

She looks at me without speaking. Her look would have been unreadable, but once again her aura reveals her emotions to me. And once more I can't even begin to make sense of them.

"You said that Ranma wasn't your name, and that wasn't your shape." I nod. She continues. "Will you tell me your real name? Will you show me your real shape."

Wordlessly I stand and step away from the bed. With my back to her I slowly strip, unwrapping my pigtail from my shoulder, folding my shirt and pants carefully. My underwear and the wrap I wear around my chest follow. My slippers lay side by side, with the socks on them. I stand there naked, and then I change back..

My muscles unfold themselves, my bones shift, my fur and tail sprout in an ebony wave. The claws in my hands extend with the noise of a sword being unsheathed. When the change is finished I turn around.

Setsuna looks at me. Long black hair covers my body. On my back are stripes of opalescent darkness. Three inch claws extend from my fingers. My ankles had moved their position to higher up on my legs. My ears had shifted higher up on my head, while my face remained largely unchanged, though now thoroughly furred with short black hair. A long tail twitches behind me. "My name is Ran."

I had seen others look like this before. Mostly on animes. They called it the cat-person look. With an easy shift of my balance, I descend onto four legs, where I am just as comfortable as on two. I assume a very feline sitting position, back legs curled up underneath me, my front legs supporting my body, and my ears twitched forwards. Behind me my tail lashes furiously.

Setsuna drops the sheet she had been using to cover herself. Beneath she is wearing a modest night gown, made of green lace. She stands gracefully from the bed where she had been sleeping only minutes before, and sways gracefully over to where I wait. She kneels before me, out faces almost equal, and only inches apart. She studies my eyes intently.

"Hello Ran," she whispers, and then her arms are around me, her body pressed up against mine. "My name is Setsuna. All those years ago, you told me that you loved me." My arms lifted from the ground, and wrapped themselves around her. "I wept for days after you died...After you returned to your plain, because I had never had the chance to tell you, that I love you too."

We embrace for what seems like eternity. Then she begins to separate, and I reluctantly let go of her. Her face is once more inches from mine.

"I need to get some sleep," she tells me. "Would you take me to bed?" I stand, and pick her up. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I cradle her body to my large furry chest. I carry her the few feet to her bed, and place her gently in it. When I try to release her and straighten, she holds me tightly.

"Please," she begs, and her aura is a strange mix of fear and desire. Not sexual desire, but something deeper. "I don't want to be alone any more." I don't resist as she pulls me into bed next to her. It is easily big enough for the both of us. Disregarding the sheets, Setsuna curls up next to me, wrapping her arms around me, and almost burrowing into my fur.

I don't know when we fall asleep, but my last conscious thought is of her against me. I am happy.

----

My ears twitch, and I awake in a heartbeat. Where am I? What's going on? Besides me Setsuna murmurs in her sleep, and I freeze. Oh, yeah. That's where I am. Then what woke me up? I expand my senses for a moment. Oh boy. Trouble.

Coming down the hallway to Setsuna's bedchamber is maid, pushing a cart heavily laden with breakfast. While her reaction to her queen being in bed with an enormous cat-person would be funny, I think Setsuna could do without that hassle. I consider moving, but reject it immediately. I have waited a thousand years to be where I am now. I'll be damned if some tramp with a trolley moves me. Instead, I just change into my human appearance. Now Setsuna was only in bed and intertwined with a naked man. Much better.

I manage to pull a sheet around my waist as the maid reaches the door and opens it. Setsuna frowns in her sleep from my movement, and tightens her hold on me. Her smooth legs, uncovered below her thighs, wrap around mine, knocking the sheets askew. Oh well, I tried. I tighten my grip on her in response, breathing softly on her face, and she smiles in her sleep.

"Milady," the maid calls softly upon entering. "I have brought you..." she trails off as the scene before her becomes clear.

"Leave it by the door," I tell her dryly. "I'll make sure she gets it." The maid gawked for a moment, completely flabbergasted, and I sigh. "That means you can go." She turned around jerkily, and left the room, forgetting to close the door behind her.

"Within an hour every one in the palace will know about this," Setsuna whispers by my ear.

"Are you ashamed?" I ask. She shakes her head slowly.

"Never," she tells me. She tightened her grip on me, and we hold each other desperately. "May I ask why you're human?" I think she just noticed my shape. While its one thing to sleep next to a naked cat, a naked man is another matter.

"Would you rather the maid have spread word around the palace that their queen was into bestiality?" I ask her teasingly. She blushes crimson, both in her aura and on her face.

"I've never... been... with anyone before," she tells me. She leans forward and hesitantly brushes herself against me.

"Neither have I," I tell her. She rubs her leg against mine slowly, and begins to move her head in to kiss me.

While I have nothing against that kind of action, I can tell from her aura that she doesn't really want to do this. I break our embrace and sit up.

"What is it?" Setsuna asks, her voice cool, but her aura flinching from the rejection.

"Setsuna, I have waited a thousand years just to be near you. I can wait a thousand more just to kiss you. Don't do this because you think its what I want," I tell her seriously.

"What do you mean?" she asks hesitantly.

"My kind is more advanced, more sensitive that normal humans," I begin. "We can see things. Like auras. While its not exactly sight, we can sense them, and different emotions have different 'colors'."

"What do you mean," she ask slowly. Her aura was slowly becoming apprehensive.

"I mean that while your face might not give anything away, I can tell that you don't want this. Not yet." Her aura flashes in guilty relief. I continue. "I also mean that I want you to be honest with me. If you're angry or depressed, or anything, I don't want you to try to hide it. I'll always be able to tell."

She nods, slowly.

"Good," and I grin hugely here. "Now, lets eat. Big day ahead of us." I stand up and pad naked over to the cart with breakfast on it. I take a second to wave at a cleaning girl who had been peering down the hallway, trying to spy on the queen, before kicking the door shut and taking the food over to the waiting Setsuna. "You like eggs?"

---

After a shave and a bath, we depart the private wing of the Pluto Palace. I'm clothed now with my long pigtail wrapped around my shoulders and neck again. I'm wearing the only outfit I own, a green Chinese shirt with ebony pegs, the loose pants tied off at the ankle, and soft slippers not letting a sound loose with my steps. Beside me Setsuna is resplendent in a dark green simple dress. The neckline is a trifle low cut, but not enough to be indecent. As we walk through the hall, both of us quiet and content with the company we're keeping, servants give us startled looks, some so shocked that they forget their tasks and gape openly.

They have good reason to. After I had finally shattered the barrier, the only remaining member of my species, I had looked into the history of the world I had rejoined. In over a thousand years, the princesses of the planets have been busy. While Queen Serenity had only one husband, all of the other former inner Scouts had had numerous marriages and consorts. Only Venus had more than one at the same time, but most of the ones they had taken had been regular humans, and had eventually grown old and died. Of the outers, Neptune and Uranus, Michiru and Haruka, had been lovers for as long as any can remember. Saturn was almost universally shunned, but even she had on occasion flirted with, and once it had been rumored that she had taken on a lover. Only Pluto had remained totally celibate, abstaining from any form of relationship besides her friendship with the other outers, and her working relationship with the inners. Now, after almost a thousand years, to be seen openly with a naked man in her bedchamber, and then traverse the castle holding his hand...

I swear I had seen a couple of servants drop down into desperate prayer after we had passed.

"Well Setsuna?" I quip from her side. "What are we going to today?"

"Originally, my schedule was a public audience for two hours, and than attending the royal ball on the Moon."

"Why are they scheduling the ball so early?" I ask.

Another one of those looks. "It is on another planet, Ran. They're operating on a different time zone."

Man do I feel stupid. Am I blushing?

"Well, we should follow through with it," I say. Setsuna gives me a hard look. I shift nervously under it. "Well, I would like to see Hotaru, Michiru, and Haruka again." Setsuna softens, and turns back forward.

"Yes, I hadn't thought of that." We continue for another minute, when Setsuna asks hesitantly, "Ran. What now?"

I grow serious. "Well," I say slowly, "You still have your duties as the guardian of the gates of time, don't you?" She nods. "I would never dream of taking you from your duty. I know how important it is to you." I can feel a subtle relief in her aura while I continue. "I also know that if I was there with you, you would be distracted. I wouldn't want to get in your way."

I shake my head as Setsuna draws a breath to protest. "You know it as well as I do, Setsuna. We can't be always be together." By now we have reached the queens entrance to the audience chamber. A herald stands at ready to pronounce her, though his eyes bulge when he sees me walking next to Setsuna. At my words Setsuna turns to me, and I hold her again. She knows what I had said was true, though she doesn't like it.

"I can go to the frontier," I tell her as we embrace. "I can help them there, use my powers there. I'll always be close. I can come back to you whenever you have free time. It doesn't matter how long, I will always be waiting." She nods against my shoulder, her aura a gentle pink from the love we share. We brake apart, and I surreptitiously turn aside as she wipes one of her eyes gently.

Straightening, she turns to the herald. "Announce us," she orders like a queen.

"Y-yes your Highness. M-may I ask how to announce the gentleman?" he stutters out.

I am suddenly treated to the most delightful sight. Setsuna's aura turning yellow with mischievousness. "The Royal Consort, Ran." The heralds knees almost buckle, but he valiantly steps forward to do his job. I think I like Setsuna like that.

Royal Consort Ran. It feels good to be known by a title other than He-Who-Brings-Oblivion.

---

The rush of the teleportation surges through me. Let me tell you something about teleports. You see them, and think 'wow what a way to go'. I remember an old American T.V. show involving a spaceship and an engineer with a Scottish accent where they teleport to and from planets all the time. They make it seem like a simple and speedy way to translate. And they are to most people.

Most people don't have a counter-rotary aura that dwarfs small moons.

I desperately stagger about, my head alternately aching and euphoric. My stomach heaves within, but I hadn't eaten anything before hand in anticipation of this event. Ye' gods what have I done to deserve this? I compliment myself on my foresight. When Setsuna had asked where I had wanted to be teleported, I told her anyplace with a bucket nearby. I hunch over the aforementioned appliance, and wait for the world to stop spinning.

After sitting through one of the quietest public audiences I have ever seen (the public had kept trailing off and staring at me) it had been time to attend a ball. The royal tailor, being made of sterner stuff than the rest of the palace ignored my new position, and had taken one look at my clothing and squawked a feminine cry of outrage. He began ranting something about the plebian first century archaic look and trying to decide what type of plastic-cloth would look best on me, when I had cut him off and politely informed him to make me something in the same style, preferably with silk. After he had recovered from the gruesome death threats that had accompanied my polite insistence, he had complimented me on my choice with silk, and produced, through some extremely useful twist of technology, exactly what I wanted. A good man.

I commented on a strange lump in his aura, and his good mood evaporated. Upon him telling me that he was dying of cancer, I had given him a generous tip, and removed it from him without him knowing.

After I had gotten dressed, Setsuna informed me that I would have to go on ahead, as she was having some trouble with her outfit. Women. They just like to keep you waiting. She had sent me ahead, with a message for the Queen and a note for the herald informing him of my status.

The teleport pad I had landed on had been specifically designed for people who respond to teleports in the same fashion as I. The bucket automatically rinsed what little managed to rise from me, and a cool glass of water with a breath mint laying next to it greets my exit of the stall.

From there it's a matter of seconds, and I join a small line of minor and major nobles waiting to enter the ballroom. I study them as I wait. A chain of pompous popinjays and fluttery fairies, so puffed up on their own importance to pay much attention to a young-seeming man in old clothes. Anyone like that must be some kind of servant, obviously. Useless connivers. Some of them have minor magical fields surrounding them, and a few have actual power. I personally don't have a magical field. Just my personal aura which I am keeping under the strictest control, not letting it stretch much further than that of a normal human.

All in all, sheep. Look out, here comes the wolf.

After Baron and Baroness Von Schneider, proceeded by the Duchess of La'Termines and the Marquis de Latemmene, I step up. The herald is a pompous looking elderly man, with a huge drooping mustache. His was the kind of herald that recognized all the lords on sight, and knew fragments of protocol that were so trivial that even the Queen probably ignored them. He eyes me disdainfully, figuring me for a minor lord trying to up his social standing by attending a ball on the Moon.

I hand him the invitation. He eyes the seal of the Plutonian royal house, his look an intense study, and it passes his inspection. Breaking the seal, he opens it and quickly scans the message. Than he gasps, and pounds his heart repeatedly, the envelope forgotten as he struggled over the shock, narrowly avoiding cardiac-arrest. He openly gawks at me for a moment, looking funny with that mustache, and than rereads the note again in more detail. Behind me the other guests are startled from their private worlds, and regard the herald with interest at his most unusual behavior.

"Come on, friend. I have a ball to get too," I tell him, tapping my foot and crossing my arms. He gulps loudly, and turns to the ball to perform his function.

"L-lords and Ladies, I p-present to you, the Royal Consort of the queen of Pluto, Ran," he stumbles out. Silence descends upon rooms, and open stares greet me as I enter.

"You got to work on that stutter, pal. Its bad for business," I tell the herald in passing.

I stride into the crowded ball room, and make my way to in front of the Queen's throne. Serenity sits there, and I can't help but compare this regal beauty to the young magical-girl that tried to kill me all those years ago. Besides her are the one time Sailor Scouts. On the Queens right, after the throne of Endymon, stand the previous inners. Mercury stands by herself in a blue gown, Venus next to her with one of her husbands on arm (They don't call her the goddess of love for nothing) in yellow, Mars in red standing next to Jupiter in green. The last two had started a relationship several years ago, perhaps brought on by long camaraderie, and their respective husbands dying almost on the same day. On the queens left are the outers. The ones I have been looking forward to seeing again, after all these years.

Michiru has lost none of her elegance, while Haruka had gained a mediocrom of restraint apparently. They had matured a bit more, blooming into a kind of ageless beauty. Haruka also has apparently given up cross dressing. They wear aqua and orange respectively. Hotaru stands next to them, the most changed from those days. The once young girl had grown up, gaining height until she stood taller than my male form. She had grown willowy thin, with a set of athletic breasts. She wears a dress of dark purple, almost seeming black until it reflects the light with a purple sheen. Where the others wear long gowns, she manages to pull off being the only one wearing a short dress with flying colors. Her dark hair flows down her back. She is very beautiful. She is also alone. Fear of her power has driven off all who would be with her. She must be very lonely, and my heart reaches out to her, even as I turn my attention to Moon.

"Your Highness," I say, presenting a bow just lower than that you would give to an equal. There's no way I'm going to a knee in front of this woman. My bow is just barely polite enough to pass. A rustle passes through the crowd. Through the inners' auras a ripple of indignation passes, while the outers ignore my behavior to their queen. I can see a kind of questioning and speculation stir through their auras. I can imagine what they're thinking. Who am I to become the consort of Pluto? Would I measure up? I know the four were close, all those years ago, and it looks like they still are.

The queen herself ignores my bow and its implication. I can see the same kind of speculation in her aura as had passed through the outers. "Royal Consort of the queen of Pluto," she murmurs speculatively. "You will forgive my shock. Such a think is unheard of. I must ask how it has come to pass. More so, how it has happened without my gaining any knowledge of such an event beforehand."

"I don't think that this is my story to explain, and if it was I would say that now is not the time and here is not the place," I answer. "Furthermore, I must regretfully inform you that queen Pluto will be late in her attendance of your ball." She had needed time to get dressed. I am suddenly treated to the most delightful internal picture of Setsuna running frantically around her chambers, clad in a towel, pulling at her hair and tossing clothes over her shoulder as she digs through a dresser. It is all I can do not to giggle. It would have raised questions.

Serenity raised her eyebrow. "Indeed? This is truly most unusual. Never before has Lady Pluto been late." She stops, and looks introspective for a moment. I wonder if she's really the same Moon that had attacked me all those years ago? She was so much more refined, so much more royal now. She continues finally. "It is customary for the consort to keep the queen's place until she can arrive. Will you do so?"

I nod. "Yes your Highness. It would be an honor." I ascend to Pluto's position, behind the throne. There I can see a scuff mark in the marble of the floor where Pluto had stood for countless events since the creation of the Kingdom. I assume a position, behind those scuff marks. The eyes of the outers had followed me, and take note of where I stand. Their speculation only increases at the respect I give Setsuna when she isn't even here. I return their glances evenly. Will they remember? How will they react when Setsuna and I tell them and the inners?

I don't know.

The ball continues. Even from my position, so far removed from the crowd, I can tell from the looks that I am the center of every conversation. Let them talk. They really don't matter that much. Introductions for dozens of lords and ladies pass by the Queen. I ignore them. I have no intention of getting involved in politics. I would be on the rim now, fighting, if it wasn't for Setsuna. She is my only tie to this court. No that's not true. She's the most important tied. I have three others besides her. They stand in front of me on my left.

After the last minor lord is announced, the Queen rises to announce the commencement of the ball. The first dance is for the queens, and they descend from their positions to begin their dance. Mercury and Hotaru remain in their position, as they have no partners. I stay where I am since my partner hasn't arrived yet either.

As the dance continues, I catch the other two not dancing giving me strange looks with greater and greater frequency. Mercury and Hotaru give me almost identical looks of befuddlement. I find myself making an internal bet with myself. How long before they place me? Will it be before or after Setsuna has a chance to present me to them privately. What will they do if they do remember me? Shout in astonishment, try to convince themselves that I can't be who I am?

I am brought out from my thoughts as I feel a familiar aura entering the ballroom. At last. Setsuna.

A murmur spreads through the assembled toadies separate before her. I see her and my breath is taken away.

That dress...

The dress was snug around her waist, and brocades of lace roll down the skirts. The cut is a little higher at the front end than the back at the bottom. Dark pantyhose covers her legs, and high heeled shoes her feet. The top of her dress has a high collar, higher in the back than the under her chin. Tight sleeves outline her arms, and they open bell like at the ends to allow green gloved hands to poke out. Her hair is piled up on her head in a complicated coil.

The one she had worn all those years ago, on our first date.

I don't remember when I had begun to move towards her, but we met in the center of the dance floor. As the other queens twirl around us, I reach out and take Setsuna's hand. Raising its knuckle to my lips, I kiss it once.

"May I have this dance?" she asks as I raise my eyes from her hand.

Unlike the first dance we had shared, Setsuna does not begin clumsily. Neither do I. We twirl around each other, a complicated pattern, where I led her just as much as she led me. We would come close, but never quite touch, except for our hands. Her aura radiates contentment and happiness. I can't even begin to imagine what mine displays. Perhaps a confusing mélange like what Setsuna was always displaying.

In my life there had been many things that I have finished. The barrier, my war, my people. Even this dance had to end eventually. The only thing I never wanted to end was my life with Setsuna. Maybe that admission is the end of my old life. A finish. It's time to start a new one. Who knows how it will be finished.

As we complete our final twirl, out bodies close together, neither of us out of breath, but both of us breathing hard, Setsuna leans in, and we share out second kiss together.

A passing butler with a tray fully laden with half empty champagne cups sees us and starts, tripping over his own feet. The cups fly through the air, an impossibly slow trip, and douses me with the cold liquid.

We adjust out head accordingly to my height change and refuse to break out kiss for another moment. I think I hear someone in the crowd fainting.

Finally we break apart. I brush my crimson hair aside. Somehow the tailor had sown some sort of form melding plastic into the waist band of my pants, and certain parts of my shirt as well. They constrict with my new from, revealing my rather prominent change in gender to the crowd more fully, but taken care of my height change. I definitely like that man now.

"Ranma?" a voice breaks the silence. With one arm still around Setsuna, I turn. Hotaru stands ramrod straight in her position by the throne. On the floor Haruka's eyes had widened, and Michiru's hand was pressed to her lips.

I smile at them. I put my other hand behind my head, and give them a small smile, nodding my head.

More people in the crowd feint, and the rest stand shocked, as the queen of Saturn, the bringer of silence, launches herself from the throne, and nearly tackles me in a hug. She leans against me, so much taller than my female shape, and cries into my shoulder. Haruka demonstrates that she hasn't picked up that much restraint over the years and follows, while Michiru abandons elegance as well. They both race across the floor, holding their gowns up to keep them from tripping them. They enter the embrace as well.

I stand, surrounded by the people I had grown to love in that too short time I had been with them, and I am happy.

"I'm home," I tell them.

Author's note.

The coda. The finish of the piece. The conclusion.


End file.
